LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



©|ap + ©opjjtiglt jfo, 

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UNITED STATES OF AMEKICA. 



POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS : 



BEING LETTERS WRITTEN THROUGH A MORTAL S HAND BY SPIRITS 
WHO, WHEN IN MORTAL, WERE 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE: 



WITH COMMENTS BY 

Is 

ALLEX PUTNAM, A.M., 

It 

Author of "Natty, a Spirit;" "Bible Marvel- Workers ; " "New-England 
Witchcraft Explained by Modern Spiritualism: " "Agassiz and Spiritualism." 






Myriads of beings walk the earth unseen. 
Both when we wake and when we sleep. 




BOSTON: 
COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS. 

1886. 



±w 



1?<\ 



Copyrighted, 1886, by Allen Putnam, A.M. 



POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS 



Officers of Harvard College. 



The chief contents of this work will consist of cor- 
respondences between its author and certain former 
officers of Harvard College in reference to their 
attack upon Modern Spiritualism in 1857, supple- 
mented by his comments upon the same. 

Since that date a new generation of readers and 
students has come up, many of whom may desire and 
even need to be told briefly how that so-called inves- 
tigation originated, how it was conducted, and what 
were the outcomes from it. 

In the spring of 1857 the now well-known and 
highly-esteemed Spiritualist, Dr. F. L. H. Willis, was 
a young student in the Divinity School at Cambridge, 
and because of his being used one evening by spirits 
as their instrument in the presence of H. L. Eustis, 
a professor in another department of the University, 
Willis was accused of fraud or imposture, and expelled 
from the Divinity School. 

The Willis case, an outgrowth from Spiritualism, 
naturally drew the minds of the College President 

(3) 



4 POST-MOETEM CONFESSIONS BY 

and Professors intently to that subject, which was 
then agitating the public mind, and " threatening to 
turn the world upside down." Much to my surprise, 
Agassiz states that President Walker deemed the 
intelligence diabolical which was outworking the 
spiritualistic phenomena. It may have been that 
even that liberal and able man, as did our ancestors 
in witchcraft times, undertook to banish the Devil 
by punishing mortals. Better it would have been to 
kindly clasp his hand, and convert him to an angel 
of light. 

The attainments, character, and position of those 
who constituted " The Faculty," that is, the admin- 
istrative or governing board of the College, justified 
their belief, if such they had, that it was in their 
power, and might be their duty, so to act and teach 
that the public mind would frown down and extin- 
guish any wide-spreading mental delusion. No other 
body of men in this region had powers equaling 
theirs to detect and expose the deluding force of 
fictitious claims. The Faculty assumed the claims 
of Spiritualists, that decarnated men and women 
return, to be fictitious, — not based on veritable facts. 
Therefore, in good faith, no doubt, and for what they 
deemed public good, they, in the words of Spirit 
Agassiz, "as a body, agreed to give it battle, and 
that, too, believing we could demolish the structure, 
.... but we soon found we were powerless in the 
matter." 

Their purpose was "to give it battle." But Spirit- 
ualists, and the public extensively, understood that 
they proposed to make a fair investigation, not to 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 5 

"give battle" I was present when they and Dr. 
Gardner agreed upon the arrangements for a fair 
trial of the powers of spirits. Would that I could 
deem them in their subsequent course fair and hon- 
orable. But I cannot. It will be shown by the let- 
ter of George Lunt, editor then of the Boston Courier, 
that prior to open movement he had agreed with the 
Faculty to co-operate with them in the contemplated 
war upon Spiritualism. In the columns of his paper 
soon came out what was essentially a challenge to 
Spiritualists to bring mediums before a committee of 
Harvard Professors, and submit spirit-doings to inves- 
tigation by high scientific scrutiny and skill. 

Dr. Gardner met Prof. Felton, and soon between 
them it was agreed that four specified professors 
should be that committee, and that Dr. Gardner 
might bring before it such and as many mediums as 
he pleased. He did bring before them the Fox Sisters, 
the Davenport Brothers, G. A. Redman, J. V. Mans- 
field, and many other mediums. The committee sat 
through two days at the Albion, in Boston. It was 
soon apparent that the strong minds of the two older 
and abler members of the committee, and that of 
George Lunt, were firmly* set against the mediums, 
and though an abundance of raps came upon table, 
chairs, and ceiling, not much more mystery was 
evolved. The committee reported failure by the 
spirits ; denounced Spiritualism, and promised to 
" publish a report of their proceedings," and an ex- 
planation of the occurrence of the raps, and of the 
phenomena of Spiritualism. 

The same mediums who appeared before the aus- 



b POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

tere professors subsequently went before an assembly 
of editors and reporters connected with the daily and 
other papers, when success in production of marvel- 
ous phenomena of various kinds was surprisingly 
great. The public was soon informed of this success, 
and received distinct and extensive accounts of many 
doings which the highest science of Harvard was 
unable, and remained unable, to account for. The 
then prominent members of that committee are now, 
through their letters to me from their abodes in 
spirit-land, after twenty-nine years' consideration, 
putting before mortals that promised explanatory 
and often called-for Report. 

More extended account of that conflict is given in 
the pamphlet of seventy pages, entitled Agassiz and 
Spiritualism, written and published by me in 1874. 
Being then ignorant of secrets now revealed, I wrong- 
fully presented Prof. Felton as chief instigator and 
manager of the assaults. Now we learn that he 
acted as servant of President Walker, and the whole 
Faculty. 

On the forenoon of Jan. 29, 1886, was received 
through J. V. Mansfield a very welcome, interesting, 
and valuable communication, which I deem worthy 
of publication and preservation. A statement of 
causes which brought it forth may impart interest to 
what follows. 

On an evening in or near the month of April, 
1885, the writer was one of a company of thirty to 
forty Spiritualists assembled in the parlor of W. A. 
Dunklee, on Tremont Street, Boston. The host, 
knowing that I had been present at, and participated 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 7 

in, the doings of the investigation of Spiritualism by 
certain professors of Harvard College in 1857, invited 
me to give some account of the same. In my account 
I spoke in commendation of the general character of 
Prof. Felton, — the challenger to the investigation, 
though not one of the investigating committee. I 
had known him from his youth up; we were fitted 
for college at the same academy ; were in college 
together ; were intimate friends ; the friendship ex- 
isted when we became contestants in the press con- 
cerning the character and merits of Spiritualism, and 
was not broken by our argumentations and conflict- 
ing views. Each retained confidence in the other's 
uprightness of intention and desire to promote pub- 
lic good, though each viewed the other as having 
been beguiled into harmful paths of error pertaining 
to the source, character, and prospective operations 
of the strange phenomena then abounding in the 
community. 

My commendation of that professor, as a man, 
whom I had known well for thirty years, and ever 
found pure and benevolent in his intentions, re- 
kindled smoldering fires in the bosom of Mr. Mans- 
field, who was one of the listening company, brought 
him to his feet, and moved him to dissent in burning 
ardor from the justice of my characterization of my 
old friend. Mr. Mansfield, no doubt, had justifying 
cause for his strong language in reproof of one who 
in blind zeal worked discourteously and harshly 
against the ostensible producers of phenomena which 
that professor indiscriminately viewed as the produc- 
tions of fraud and imposture. 



8 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

Shortly subsequent to my thus getting knowledge 
of the prolonged vitality of the fires of Mansfield's 
indignation toward my friend Felton, who years ago 
passed out from his mortal form, my thoughts turned 
to consideration as to how those fires could be ex- 
tinguished. Felton, a spirit, years ago, told me, 
through Mrs. Rockwood, medium, that through Mrs. 
Ricker he had been convinced of spirit return and 
action among us before he passed from the plane of 
mortal life, but " position constrained him from 
avowing it." He also said that he was then befriend- 
ing the cause of Spiritualism. The query arose 
whether I could get Spirit Felton to write out his 
present views of Mr. Mansfield and his work through 
Mansfield's own hand. 

Much time passed on ere fitting opportunity and 
requisite means were mine for trying the experiment. 
Sunday, Jan. 24, 1886, I met the spirits' scribe at the 
Lyceum Session, in Paine Hall. He then cordially 
invited me to call upon him at any time, saying, also, 
that he would gladly write for me gratuitously. Thus 
a way was opened for my attempt. 

On Wednesday, Jan. 27th, I wrote the letter, which 
will appear below. The next day was so stormy as 
to confine me to the house. On Friday morning I 
took the letter to Mr. Mansfield, told him the letter 
was long and peculiar, and that it might take him 
some time to answer, and therefore that I would 
leave it for him to reply to at his leisure. The letter 
was still in my own hand, and had not been touched 
by him. He asked : " Did you write the letter ' your- 
self f" "Yes," said I. "Then," said he, "sit down 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 9 

now at the table and write a single question to the 
person to whom the long letter is addressed. I can 
do better while you are present." I sat down and 
wrote, folding over what was written, thus conceal- 
ing it from his sight. 

The long letter was as follows : — 

Boston, Jan. 27, 1886. 
Spirit Cornelius Conway Felton : 

Dear friend in the days of our youth, and my contestant 
about spirit operations in the days of our manhood : Memory 
now carries my thought to the spirit of Prophet Samuel, 
who, when called up by King Saul, asks : " Why hast 
thou disquieted me ? " I seek to get some thoughts from 
you through one whose memory and views of you disquiet 
him very much, and approach to him may disquiet you. 

I never lost esteem and respect for you, — never distrusted 
the goodness of your motives, though I often did the wisdom 
of your processes of action toward Spiritualism and Spirit- 
ualists. 

I now am bent upon an experiment. I desire to learn 
whether a spirit can use the physical organism to write out 
his or her views, where that organism belongs to one who 
hates the spirit that dictates. 

Please answer the following questions : — 

1. Do you now see or know that spirits do use Mr. J. V. 
Manfield as their amanuensis ? 

2. How do you now estimate the effects of his labors upon 
mortals and spirits ? 

3. Are you conscious that you ever misjudged him, or 
harmed him by thought, deed, or word ? 

4. Please express your present estimate of him, and his 
work. 



10 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

5. Comment upon any other matter which it pleases you 
to notice, — whether it pertain to me, your old friend, to the 
cause that most interests me, — Spiritualism, — or to any 
other matter. 

Your friend in your youth, in your manhood, and such 
now while your home is in the spirit spheres. 

Allen Putnam. 

P. S. — You need not put Mr. Mansfield's name in your 
response, but say thus and so about the person to whom my 
inquiries pertain. 

The short letter, written in the scribe's room, 
was: — 

Spirit Cornelius Conway Fenton : 

My Dear Old Friend, — If you can, please say what you 
now think of Mr. Mansfield as an amanuensis for spirits. 

Jan. 29, 1886. Allen Putnam. 

I sat down in a chair eight or ten feet from Mr. 
Mansfield. His hand soon commenced to write, and 
in less than twenty minutes, I think, he handed me 
the following on the sheet which contained the sealed 
request : — 

" My honored and very dear brother, once college-mate, 
and life-long friend, I am so pleased to meet you calling for 
me. I was with you, and so were our old but dear friends, 
Dr. Luther V. Bell, President Walker, Peirce, and H. F. 
Gardner, this early morning. It was by our united action 
that you were forced to come and talk with me through the 
man I so abused while I lived in mortal. But, friend Put- 
nam, I did it not maliciously, or with any feeling of selfish- 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 11 

ness, like attempting to shut out the light of truth, which was 
then dawning upon the age we lived in. But it was from a 
desire I had that the people should not follow a bubble that 
would, in my opinion, burst, and that, too, in the near future. 

" I freely and fully beg Mansfield's pardon for the course 
I took at the time he so kindly and freely invited my inves- 
tigation and criticism. I now see, as millions have, that 
once, perhaps innocently and honestly, they opposed one 
light of truth, and later were forced to admit the fact. 

" 1 have often talked this matter oyer with Eustis, as to 
his and my doings with young Willis. We are convinced of 
our wrong-doings, and are now ready to proclaim such to 
you and the world. 

" I now know that your friend Mansfield is all that he has 
professed, or all that is claimed for him by his and your 
friends. Tell him I sincerely beg pardon for all the pain I 
have in the long past caused him. 

' k Your friend and brother, 
" Jan. 29, 1886. Cornelius C. Felton." 

Such was the response. My experiment succeeded 
far beyond my expectation. It brought forth Fel- 
ton's free and full supplication for Mansfield's 
pardon for abuse bestowed upon this scribe for 
spirits, when he asked Felton to investigate and 
criticise his operations. I hope and trust that this 
suit for pardon will contribute to the peace of both 
the abuser and the abused. 

My questions were fully met by the responses 
having application to Mansfield alone. But my 
friend heeded my hint that more would be wel- 
comed. His notice of other matters indicates prob- 
ability that he perceived the purport of my letter to 



12 POST-MOBTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

him prior to the morning of the day of its presenta- 
tion to the scribe. He says that early that very 
morning he, Dr. Bell, Prest. Walker, Prof. Peirce, and 
Dr. H. F. Gardner met, and, by united will-powers, 
"forced" me to visit Mansfield. 

Why those spirits, rather than any other of his 
and my many old associates and friends now in spirit 
life? Obviously, in my view, it was because each 
one of those men, while mortal, took part in, or surely 
had accurate knowledge of, onslaughts by Harvard 
professors upon mediums and Spiritualism. 

Whatever may have been the views and feelings 
of any one or all of them after viewing their acts 
pertaining to Spiritualists in the light of a spirit- 
sphere, amid which truth would reveal itself and 
justice make demands for righting wrongs committed 
as far as circumstances and conditions would permit, 
they probably up to that time had found it difficult 
to command befitting mediums, magnetisms, and re- 
cipients for information so combined as to render it 
expedient, if possible, to satisfactorily put their pres- 
ent views and feelings before mortals. 

My relations to those men, in matters pertaining 
to Spiritualism, did formerly, and still do, differ some- 
what from those of any other mortal. This fact may 
cause them to view me as prominently deserving and 
well fitted to be recipient of their present views of 
some of their mundane transactions. The statements 
contained in Felton's response apparently have the 
sanction of all the persons he names, as one band 
which, after consultation, joined in applying powers 
which " forced" me to go and submit my letter. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 13 

What were the relations of these men, severally, and 
of myself to the famous Harvard Investigation 
in 1857? 

Prof. Felton was the challenger of Spiritualists to 
the trial. Dr. Gardner accepted the challenge. Prof. 
Peirce was a prominent and very active member of 
the investigating committee. Dr. Bell was present 
at the investigation as a very intelligent and unbiased 
observer. I went with Dr. Gardner as his counselor 
and aid when he met the investigating committee to 
specify and agree upon conditions for the trial ; also 
was present at the trial throughout. While thus 
aiding Gardner I was working against two — Felton 
and Peirce — whom I had well known, and who had 
well known me, for nearly thirty years. I had their 
friendship, and they had mine. Br. Bell and Presi- 
dent Walker were my acquaintances and friends. 
I alone of all graduates from Harvard was open 
contestant for Spiritualism then, and am, I think, 
down to this day, the only graduate from that insti- 
tution who has openly advocated Spiritualism on the 
rostrum or in the public press, over his own signature. 
These facts may have pointed to me as a preferable 
one to be receiver of the statements which those 
spirits have become ready to voluntarily put before 
the mundane world pertaining to their treatment of 
mediums and Spiritualists while on this mortal plane. 
No other mortal had possessed better, if as good, oppor- 
tunities than or as mj^self to become cognizant of some 
past doings by these professors which they now know 
and feel were persecutions of honest manifestors of 
genuine facts, and promulgators of important truths. 



14 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

The members of that band knew that no other sur- 
vivor of them could comprehend the extent and char- 
acter of special mundane errors and wrong-doings by 
themselves better than myself, and none other would 
be more likely to put their confessions before the 
world, and try to aid them in righting the wrongs of 
their mundane teachings and acts. This I gladly 
attempt to do, in kindness to them, in kindness to 
the mortals whom they aspersed, and to all who 
hereby learn that changed views have come to Har- 
vard professors relative to mediums and Spiritualism 
since they have scanned them in supernal light. 

One other person was named by Felton, not as his 
adviser and aid on the morning of the conference of 
spirits, but as one with whom, as he states, he had 
often conversed in reference to their treatment of 
young Willis; they (as they surely ought to be) are 
ready "to proclaim, do proclaim, to the world" that 
they are convinced of their wrong-doings in that case. 

Spirit Dr. H. F. Gardner, I congratulate you ! 
How joyous to you must be your retrospect now ! 
The cause in which I aided you, and in which you 
fought undauntedly, your contestants now, in their 
abodes above, concede to have been the cause of 
fact and truth, — glorious truth. Accept my con- 
gratulations, and give me your helping hand to work 
on in the same cause to the end of my sojourn here. 



In the Banner of Light of February 27th (see p. 
10), was a communication from Spirit C. C. Felton, 
acknowledging errors and wrongs, by himself and 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 15 

others, in treatment of Spiritualists while in mortal. 
An intelligent private correspondent has suggested 
to me that a statement by Prof. Agassiz seems need- 
ful for making clear some points pertaining to the 
Harvard Investigation. Thus prompted, I addressed 
Agassiz in a sealed note, and submitted it to Mr. 
J. V. Mansfield. That note and the response to it 
are as follows : — 

Spirit Louis Agassiz — Illustrious Naturalist and Scie?itist: 
Dear Sir, — Having been a witness of many of your 
sayings and doings in connection with a reputed investigation 
of Spiritualism by yourself and three other Harvard pro- 
fessors in 1857, having also been author of a small work, 
entitled Agassiz and Spiritualism, in which were set forth 
my views of your position then and of the investigation, I 
now state that I will gladly receive from you such account 
of your present views of Spiritualism itself, and of the doings 
of yourself and associates at the reputed investigation, as 
you can gladly give in willingness that the world should see 
them. Very respectfully, 

March 1, 1886. Allen Putnam. 



LETTER FROM PROF. LOUIS AGASSIZ. 

u Much Esteemed and Long- Cherished Friend Putnam, — 
Yours of the 1st inst. is before me, and our friends Feltoa, 
Peirce, Gardner, Mapes, Huntington, Eustis, Longfellow, 
W. Phillips, Epes Sargent, Robert Dale Owen, Luther V. 
Bell, Thomas Whittemore, one and all, most sincerely con- 
gratulate you in your steadfastness to the course which has 
been, and now is, so precious to your heart, viz., spirit- 
intercommunion. 



16 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

u For one, I will admit that we did agree to disagree, and 
never for once did it lessen our friendship or esteem for 
each other. I have often thought we did not so much dis- 
agree as it was generally supposed we did by the outside 
world; where you had the manliness and courage to proclaim 
the conviction of that which welled up through your human- 
itarian heart, I shrank from proclaiming what I knew to 
be true, viz., the presence of phenomena I could not fathom 
or explain. I would place my hand upon ponderable mat- 
ter or objects, and, without any volition of mine, such would 
not only move under my touch, but frequently manifest an 
intelligence most surprising. But, being unable to account 
for such intelligence or phenomena, I was not willing to 
proceed or continue my investigation, and therefore and 
therefrom gave it a wide berth. Could it have been ex- 
plained to me satisfactorily, or could I have demonstrated it 
as I could a natural science or a product of nature, I would 
never have turned my face from it. 

"I talked with our friend President Walker several 
times touching the subject which bid fair to turn the world 
upside down. At one time Walker admitted there was an 
intelligence underlying the Spiritual Philosophy, but rather 
attributed the intelligence as originating from demoniacal 
sources, and ever after that discountenanced the subject. 
He declared that so long as he occupied the position as 
President of Harvard College, that institution should not 
bear the stigma of its (Spiritualism) being countenanced by 
the Harvard Faculty. 

"That being the decision of our President, we, as a body, 
agreed to give it battle, and that, too, believing we could 
demolish the structure which was then so distasteful to the 
(then) masses. I need not repeat our course of procedure, 
— that is to your mind and recollections too patent. 

"We soon found we were powerless in the matter ; but as 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 17 

we professors (as Mr. Lunt would say) had put our foot iuto 
it, we must make the best of it. 

. "We did not wait until coming here to see our mistake ; 
we learned that mistake long before. Our friend Felton has 
openly acknowledged to you, and allowed you to publish to 
the world, a frank confession of his doings toward mediums 
and Spiritualists generally, — his acknowledgment voices my 
present feeling. 

" I only regret that I had not that confidence which un- 
wavering faith gave you, to have sustained me, and that has 
characterized your life-doings for more than thirty years. 
Here allow me to say in all sincerity, as a spirit, that much 
as I labored to disprove the claims of Spiritualists, the un- 
explainable phenomena exhibited by the mediums were my 
only evidence or hope of a conscious individuality beyond 
the tomb. 

"Now, my good friend Putnam, do not weary in ways of 
well-doing. You know now where once } r ou hoped it might 
be so. Your sand of life runs low ; soon you will join those 
that have passed within the vail. Then you will know as 
your dear ones know, see as they now see. 
" Sincerely and kindly, 
"To Allen Putnam, Boston. Louis Agassiz. 

"March 3, 1886." 



Prior to that account by Agassiz, I had supposed 
that the four professors who made the reputed Har- 
vard investigation were selected to act, and were 
generally supposed to act then and there, simply as 
four learned and trustworthy individuals, and not as 
representatives of the college. They were, ostensibly 
to the public, selected to witness a trial from which 



18 POST-MOETEM CONFESSIONS BY 

to determine whether a definite sum of money, con- 
ditionally offered, should be won or not by medium- 
istic operations in their presence. The public had 
no reason to suppose, I did not suspect, that the col- 
lege government as a body had any connection with 
that matter. But Agassiz now states that the presi- 
dent of the college was their director, viewing the 
reputation of the college as being involved in the 
outcome of that trial. 

Such information made me desirous of getting a 
statement from President Walker himself. There- 
fore I addressed him as follows : — 

Spirit James Walker — My Revered Friend, President 
of Harvard College when what has been called the Harvard 
Investigation of Spiritualism occurred in 1857 : 
It is obviously known by you that our friends Felton and 
Agassiz have recently, from their abiding places as spirits, 
addressed me in reference to that reputed investigation. 
Statements by Agassiz imply that your views of Spiritualism 
influenced him and his associates to " battle" against and 
strive to demolish the structure — Spiritualism — rather than 
to calmly investigate its merits. Therefore, if it be wise in 
your present view, and agreeable with your sense of duty to 
the public, I shall be glad to have you write out through the 
hand of Mr. J. V. Mansfield, and allow me to make public, 
an account of your own sayings or doings in reference to 
that reputed investigation, and in reference to the expulsion 
of young Willis from the Divinity School. 

With deep and abiding respect and reverence for your 
wisdom and many virtues, kindly yours, 

March 6, 1886. Allen Putnam. 



OFFICERS OF HABVAKD COLLEGE, 19 



LETTER FROM PRESIDENT JAMES WALKER. 

" Much Respected and Highly-Esteemed Friend while I was 

Mortal, and not less so now I am a Spirit: 

" I thank you, doubly so, for allowing me an opportunity 
to express my regrets for my course toward Spiritualism 
when I was in the body mortal. 

" I will, then, say all that our mutual friend Felton has 
told you of our course toward young Willis is true, and yet 
one-half of our manoeuvring never came before the public. 
It is not necessary to divulge it, so long as what is already 
before the world accomplished our plan. As Felton has 
told you, we sincerely believed we were doing the world at 
large a favor to bring to light the most stupendous fraud 
ever invented by mortal or his Satanic Majesty. While we, 
Agassiz, Felton, Peirce, and Enstis, did among ourselves 
agree that there were exhibited phenomena that we could 
not explain, we came to the conclusion that they were de- 
moniacal, and as honest men we pursued the course we did. 
Had we deferred our investigation, say later, we might have 
arrived at quite another conclusion ; for not more than two 
years after young Willis's permission to resign (for that was 
really all that it was) Agassiz and Felton and myself were 
reasonably convinced we had taken a position (and that 
position had been made public) that would, as it has, 
lowered us very much in the opinion of the scientists of the 
world at large. 

" I do not deny the charge made public by our friend 
Agassiz, that we did conjointly agree to exert our utmost to 
demolish what seemed to us so destructive to Church and 
State, — the wide-spread of spirit-communion. I, of course, 
was not to be placed in the front ranks of the battle, yet, so 
far as advice was needed or solicited, I was not coy in im- 
parting it. 



20 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

" Even before I passed within the vail I regretted deeply 
my haste in taking the step I did, and so proclaimed to my 

associates, Felton and Agassiz. Dr. P and Thomas 

Starr King called on me just prior to King's leaving for the 
Pacific coast to — if possible — convince me of my wrong 
toward young Willis. Their arguments confounded me ; 
and yet I was obliged to sustain my position or lose cast 
with the public. Agassiz, I think, would have publicly con- 
fessed his mistake had Felton and Peirce yielded. 

" I have witnessed the most astonishing phenomena in the 
presence of Louis Agassiz (and produced, too, through his 
own organism) I ever beheld. I would often say: 'Agassiz, 
what do you make of such phenomena ? ' He was always 
without an explanation. It would, at times, cause him to 
tremble, and once he shed tears. 

" To ask the world to now forgive us would simply be 
wasting precious time. That we were wrong — wrong — we 
humbly confess. 

" I would be so pleased to take young Willis by the hand, 
and confess my error. Would it be asking too much of my 
dear friend Putnam to visit Willis, and ask him to forgive 
and forget? I will be with you in so doing. Eustis would 
ask the same were he here to do so. 

"You have, my dear Putnam, stood the brunt of many 
hard-fought battles since you espoused the cause of truth, — 
truth; and as I once pitied you from the depths of my heart 
for what I was confident was an error, I now envy the com- 
fort you realize from day to day that you walked not 
blindly, but by the light of the spirit-world, which shone not 
only into your own mind but all around you. 

" Truly and sincerely your friend in life, and now as a 
spirit, James Walker. 

" March 6, 1886." 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 21 

President Walker was not supposed by me, and I 
think not by the public, to have had any connection 
with the reputed investigation. It saddened me to 
learn from Spirit Agassiz that so great and so good 
a man had been chief director of the operations of the 
investigating committee. Walker himself now con- 
fesses that he was. I have not the slightest doubt 
that he, like Paul of old, acted then in all good con- 
science before God, and in genuine regard for the 
welfare of humanity. He saw his mistake before 
leaving the mortal ; and when he writes that he 
thinks Agassiz would have confessed to the world if 
Felton and Peirce would have yielded, he perhaps 
indicates that he was ready to confess. 

No other mortal probably can derive pleasure equal 
to mine from these post-mortem revelations and 
acknowledgments. What they say relative to my- 
self and my course is rich compensation for all the 
strength and means I put forth in the " many hard 
battles " I fought against their views and their 
doings pertaining to Spiritualism, — not against them 
as men. Their thanks for opportunity to confess, — 
" thanks, doubly so," — implies that confession gives 
them relief. May heavenly blessings, ever increas- 
ing, be theirs. 

The above communications are so plain as to need 
no explanation. They reveal a distinct purpose by 
prominent members in the government of Harvard 
College to extinguish Spiritualism. Though Agassiz, 
by stating that there was more apparent than real 
difference between his views and mine in 1857, and 
by the manifestations through him as medium wit- 



22 POST-MOETEM CONFESSIONS BY 

nessed by President Walker, evidently must have 
felt that it might be working against fact, yet in 
compliance with the wishes of others he yielded to 
their solicitations, and labored to accomplish, seem- 
ingly to the public, the impossible, viz., the demoli- 
tion of a positive fact. He now wishes that he had 
then been strong enough to have acknowledged that 
he had witnessed facts which he was unable to ex- 
plain. 

All the others may have been confident that they 
were striving to demolish a harmful, wide-spreading 
delusion at the time of the trial. However, not more 
than two years elapsed before they found fchey had 
warred against a deathless and invulnerable fact. 



ALLEN PUTNAM S LETTER TO HON. GEO. LTJNT. 

Spirit Hon. Geo. Lunt, one year my senior as a graduate 
from Harvard College, and my esteemed acquaintance thence- 
forth to the close of your very efficient, beneficent, and hon- 
orable course as a mortal, but yet my decided and active 
contestant as editor of the Boston Courier, and backer of 
our mutual friend C. C. Felton, and others, in their offorts 
to extinguish Spiritualism in 1857 : 

Dear Sir, — If it now be your pleasure to give me for 
publication your present views of Spiritualism, and of the 
course you and others nearly twenty-nine years ago pursued 
in efforts to extinguish it, I shall gladly receive your state- 
ments. If, however, you feel the least reluctance to com- 
ply with this request, omit to do it, and no offence will be 
given, and no public mention be made of the omission. 



OFFICERS OF HAEVARD COLLEGE. 23 

Many decarnated ones express thanks to any survivors who 
by definite calls furnish the departed opportunities to com- 
ment upon their own mundane operations. 

Respectfully and kindly yours, 
June 2, 1886. Allen Putnam. 

response to the above. 

" Highly Esteemed Friend and Associate of my College 
Days, — Much as we might, and really did, disagree on mat- 
ters of an after-life, — Spiritualism in particular, — I do not 
recollect a time when we were not friends, and ready and 
willing to greet one another cordially, wherever and when- 
ever we met. 

" The subject of Spiritualism was distasteful to my mind ; 
to believe it seemingly belittled my manhood. But again, 
when I for a moment stopped and considered that my supe- 
riors in many instances believed it possible for spirits and 
mortals to communicate, such men as Prof. Hare, Robert 
Owen, William Coleman, John W. Edmonds, J. J. Mapes, 
yourself, and a thousand more who dared to openly avow it, 
I said to myself : 4 There must be some fire where there is 
so much smoke.' 

" Prior to that conclusion, I had agreed to battle the so- 
called Spiritual Philosophy with others, viz., Agassiz, C. C. 
Felton, Peirce, Eustis, Walker, and the Faculty generally. 
But before six months had passed we found we had an ele- 
phant on our hands, and he was fast becoming troublesome. 

" But as the world was looking to us, or the Faculty, to 
solve the problem, we could not gracefully back down and 
out without incurring the ridicule of the scientific world and 
of those who did accept that claimed by the Spiritualists. 
We battled as best we could, but recruits became so numer- 
ous our movements were flanked, and we beat a hasty but 
quiet retreat, reserving our report for another day. 



24 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

" Agassiz would often shed tears at what he confessed to 
the committee he had no philosophy to explain away. C. C. 
Felton at times would turn pale at phenomena that mani- 
fested clearly through his own mediumship. Peirce would 
often say : ' Gentlemen, it w r ould be more honorable to make 
a clean breast of the matter'; to say to the public: 'Wfe 
have no philosophy that touches this subject.' Eustis was 
bull-headed from the first to the last. 

"We too plainly beheld the strong hold the Spiritual 
Philosophy had upon the public mind. 

u Talking with Wm. Lloyd Garrison, and one time with 
W. Phillips, they were coy in giving general expression of 
their feelings, but indicated it might all be true. If, said 
they, it is a truth, it can be demonstrated, and it will live. 
If not a truth, it will fall, fall, fall. 

" Taking, as I did, position to pull down the structure that 
bid fair to upset or overthrow the popular institutions of the 
day (particularly religious), I could not take a back track, 
and sustain my position as editor, /was not long in con- 
vincing myself that least said for or against Spiritualism was 
the proper course for me to pursue. 

"I need not lose time in telling you what you already 
know, viz., that the church organizations, since the advent 
of Modern Spiritualism, have lost their power or sway, mor- 
ally and religiously, and every year their numbers become 
less and less. The world at large, as it advanced in all arts 
and sciences, demanded a more consistent form, or mode of 
religious worship ; and while the world was fast becoming 
infidel to the then popular leading of the day, this white- 
winged messenger of Spiritualism made its advent, and Old 
Theology weakened, and today it is but a wreck of its former 
self. 

"Not long since I met Felton, Agassiz, Peirce, Eustis, 
Bell, Mapes, Gardner, Dr. Putnam, Walker, Jno. W. Ed- 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 25 

monds, Robert Owen, Tyndall, Channing, Henry Ware, 
Buckingham, B. B. Mussey, Judge Phillips, T. Starr King, 
T. Whittemore, Lynde A. Huntington, and a score or more 
of spirits, convened together talking over the past, present, 
and that which the future must, of necessity, reveal. They 
finally concluded the revelations of today were only step- 
ping-stones to those more mighty in the near distance. 

" If you desire to give my sayings to the world at large, 
you are at liberty to do so. 

" Respectfully your friend, 
"June 8, 1886. Geo. Lunt." 



LETTER BY ALLEN TO SPIRIT GEO. PUTNA3I. 

Spirit George Putnam, for many years a Clergyman in 
Roxbury, and from 1853 to 1877 one of the six Socii or 
Fellows of Harvard College : 

Mr Dear Cousin, — Letters recently received by me 
from Spirits James Walker and George Lunt contain your 
name as cognizant of, though not a performer with, them 
and others of doings pertaining to the removal of F. L. H. 
Willis from the Divinity School, and to the so-called Har- 
vard Investigation, Your position in or over the college 
government, and your long and intimate acquaintance with 
me, and your uniform tolerance of study and advocacy of 
Spiritualism by myself and many other members of your 
church and parish, make me desirous of getting, for open 
use, a statement by you of your present views of spiritual- 
istic matters. Your affectionate 

" June 10, 1886. Cousin Allen." 



26 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE LETTER. 

"Very Dear Cousin Allen, — Yours of the 10th is 
before me, and for such courtesy and fraternal respect you 
have my thanks. 

" I need not reiterate my often-expressed views of Spir- 
itualism, for the change termed death has by no means 
changed them, but rather strengthened them, if such could 
be possible. Occupying as I did position as a minister of 
the Gospel, I was compelled, to a certain extent, to exercise 
great caution while speaking to my parishioners, lest I give 
offence by stating what some thought to be a departure from 
the teachings set forth by the accepted church organization. 

"When I talked with you it was without the least fear or 
restraint. We understood one another perfectly. I was 
often labored with by several of my flock for giving utter- 
ances that smacked somewhat of spirit-communion, but, as 
St. Paul said : i None of those things moved me.' 

" Spirit-communion is not only possible, but it is a fact. 
Aside from evidence manifested to mortals of an after- 
life through spirit-communion, there is none whatever. 

" Touching the matter of that so-called Harvard Investi- 
gation, I will say, as far as I was connected with it, or the 
Faculty, all that has been told you by Agassiz, Felton, 
Walker, and Lunt is virtually true. More could be said 
which it was not deemed expedient by the committee to 
communicate. However, enough has been already said to 
place the matter, or the course pursued by that now more 
repenting crowd, before the world in its proper light. 

" Talking the matter over with Drs. Lothrop and Chan- 
ning, they only wonder that the churches attempt to stand 
in open opposition to the very groundwork of their faith. 

"Well, the ball is in motion that will roll on until it 
crushes beneath its ponderous weight all the opposition which 
now, and may in the future, stand in its way. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 27 

" I rejoice, cousin, that you have lived so long, and, at the 
same time, sustained the flag you hoisted in the cause of 
truth more than a score and half years since. Be faithful 
to the light within you, and ever before you. Your battle 
is nearly fought. Your record is really one to be envied. 

" If you desire to give my views, as briefly stated above, 
to the public, you have my full consent. 

" Kindly and sincerely your friend and cousin, 
" June 19, 1886. George Putnam." 



LETTER TO SPIRIT PROF. BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 

Spirit Benjamin Peirce, once an Eminent Professor of 
Mathematics at Harvard College, and while such, one — 
yes, Chairman — of the Committee to Investigate Spiritual- 
ism : 

Honored and Respected Sir, — Doubtless you well 
know what Felton, Agassiz, Walker, Lunt, and Putnam 
have recently given me in reference to that investigation. 
Walker has intimated that yourself with Felton held Agassiz 
back while in mortal from open avowal that Spiritualism 
presented phenomena which his philosophy could not ex- 
plain. Lunt, however, presents you as having favored such 
an avowal. Such facts call upon me to furnish you with 
opportunity to make your own statements, if you wish to 
make any, in reference to the renowned battlings against 
Spiritualism in 1857. 

Very respectfully yours, 
"July 21, 1886. Allen Putnam." 

response by spirit prof. benjamin peirce. 

"Very Dear and Highly-Esteemed Friend Put- 
nam, — Yours of the 21st is before me and others who took 



28 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

active measures to stay the rapid strides of Spiritualism 
about the years 1856 and 1857. 

"Now, what can I say after what Agassiz, Walker, and 
Putnam, Lunt and Felton have already admitted, and is 
now before the public ? If you indorse not what they have 
stated, you would not credit what I might say even now. 
But allow me here to say I fully concur in all that has been 
said by those above mentioned. 

" I did not willingly enter the contest ; and here allow me 
to say I did protest against it, knowing the hold Spiritualism 
had upon the masses, who were then not only investigating 
the subject, but demonstrating their claims, to my mind, as 
clearly as any problem of mathematics. 

" But holding the position I did, I could not act in con- 
trariety to the idea sustained by the Faculty, and that body 
was far from being ready to say all of their preconceived 
idea of the future was an error. As Agassiz, Felton, and 
Lunt have already stated, we — as the Faculty — banded 
together to give battle as we did. 

" The result of said attempt of the Faculty is too patent to 
need comment. Suffice it to say that after twenty-nine years 
of deliberation we have given our views of that long-prom- 
ised report. 

" I am sincerely, truly your friend, 
"June 21, 1886. Benjamin Peirce." 



LETTER TO SPIRIT • LUTHER V. BELL, M. D. 

Spirit Luther V. Bell, M. D., in 1857 at the Head of 
the McLean Asylum for the Insane, the Neighbor, and in 
Scientific Attainments the Peer, of Harvard Professors : 

Dear and Honored Sir, — You having been present at 
the so-called Harvard Investigation, as a non-partisan ob- 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 29 

server, not a Spiritualist, but a lover of facts and fearless 
adducer of whatever facts plainly taught, I solicit for public 
use such comments as you may be pleased to make upon the 
statements recently made to me, through Mansfield, the 
spirit's scribe, by the parties who conducted the warfare 
against Spiritualism. 

Kindly and very respectfully, 
June 21, 1886. Allen Putnam. 



RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE LETTER. 

" My Very Dear Friend Putnam, — I recollect you in 
all the kindness of a friend and brother, and particularly an 
investigator of the so-called Spiritualism of an early day. 
You know, my dear friend, I was not an avowed believer of 
the then claimed facts, or said to be facts by you and Spirit- 
ualism's thousand adherents ; but was a fair and cordial 
investigator. I admired facts wherever I found them. But 
although I witnessed much — yea, very strange phenomena 
— said or claimed to have emanated from departed spirits, 
yet I never was fully convinced that I had talked with any 
one I had previously known while mortal. I was probably 
as far convinced as was the philosopher Socrates. He 
' hoped for an after-life.' 

" But since coming here I have solved the question I so 
often asked, not only as I watched over or cared for my 
patients in yonder McLean Asylum, but while on the tented 
field, when the sick and wounded lay prostrate before me, 
just on the verge of another life, if one there was, I would 
ask myself, Will those now dying live again ? Will Luther 
V. Bell live again ? Will anyone live after the body has 
become food for groveling worms ? 

" The question was solved when I arrived here and took 
old acquaintances by the hand as naturally and as really as 



30 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

I ever took their hand in life. Yes, friend Putnam, I live. 
Louis Agassiz and J. J. Mapes, Timothy Thompson, James 
Stearns Hurd, M. D., live. Our mutual dear friend, Lynde 
A. Huntington, and President Walker, live. Your ever 
active, zealous and firm friend, Henry F. Gardner, and 
scores of others who fought for and against the wide-spread 
of the light which now shines into the darkness of mistaken 
theology, live. 

" I, for one, rejoice that our very repentant friends (for 
really they were our friends at heart) have at last published 
their Report, — long time coming, my dear friend, but ' bet- 
ter late than never.' 

" If I have said anything that will confirm or add to that 
already given you by the so-called sorry Faculty, you are at 
liberty to publish it over the signature of 

"June 21, 1886. Luther V. Bell, M. D." 



LETTER TO SPIRIT DR. HENRY F. GARDNER. 

Spirit Henry F. Gardner, my Dear Friend, and my 
Leader in Battling for Spiritualism's Defence, when that 
was assailed by the Culture and Science of Old Harvard: 

You are no doubt cognizant of all that has recently been 
revealed to me by Felton, Agassiz, Walker, Lunt, Putnam, 
Peirce, and Bell. Their statements are being published, and 
I feel that you should be permitted, yes, invited by me, to 
furnish statements in reference to the famous investigation, 
if you shall desire so to do. Please respond. 

Your former subordinate aid, and your friend both then 
and now, Allen Putnam. 

June- 28, 1886. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 31 

response to the above. 

" Much Esteemed Friend and Brother Putnam, — - 
I have been a silent looke^on at the correspondence that has 
so recently passed betweer j ,u and Felton, Agassiz, Walker, 
Lunt, and Bell. It gives me great joy to see that after 
nearly three decades of years our opponents throw up the 
glove. 

" I no doubt have been a thorn in their side ever since we 
have met as spirits ; although I have considered their posi- 
tion, and regarded their feelings, yet I have often said : ' My 
friends, when is the Harvard Investigation Report to be 
brought out ? ' They took my taunt, as they termed it, and 
at one time Felton said : ' Gardner, would you kick a man 
after you had thrown him down ? ' He said : 'We shall 
right the matter ere lon£\' 

" I rejoice exceedingly, my dear Putnam, that they have 
acquitted themselves so nobly ; they made a clean breast of 
it, and were willing that the world should have it (their 
statements) too. 

"I never met a more pleased set of spirits than they 
were, that they had unburdened their troubled souls. Why, 
they do not look like the same spirits. 

" Friend Putnam, spare no pains to place the correspond- 
ence before the world. It will be as well received as it has 
been anxiously looked for. Rejoice, my dear Putnam, that 
you live to read and publish the long-looked-for Report. 

"Your friend and brother, 
"June 30, 1886. Henry F. Gardner." 



COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS. 

The several responses to five of my eight letters 
now before the public, if written by the spirits whose 



32 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

names they bear, present confessons — distinct confes- 
sions — by a band whose members, in their personal 
culture, positions, and character, were fairly repre- 
sentative of New England's highest attainments in 
Theology, Literature, Science, and Philosophy, — 
representative of her highest skill and power to solve 
the mysteries of nature and life, — -yes, are their own 
confessions that, by pre-arranged and vigorous trial, 
they found themselves unable to explain the phe- 
nomena of Spiritualism by any science or philosophy 
known by them. Vaunting presumption only can 
anticipate success where such men failed. 

Were they the authors of those letters? That is 
the crucial question. My letter to each of them was 
by myself, personally and alone, written and so en- 
veloped that no mortal vision could read it. The 
envelope I so sealed that no mortal could take the 
letter out from it without marring the envelope to 
such an extent that the marring would be detect- 
able. 

Each of my letters to those spirits came back to 
me in the identical envelope in which I personally 
either dropped it into the mail-box or took it to the 
scribe's writing-desk. Each was carefully examined 
by me upon its return, and both its envelope and the 
seal upon it, stamped before left with the blade end 
of the handle of my own double-bladed pocket-knife, 
seemed under close scrutiny to be, and I doubt not 
were, just what they were and as they were when 
they passed out from under my personal care. 

Whether my processes were conducted carefully 
and honestly, I, and I only in mortal, can know ; I 



OFFICERS OF HABVAB.D COLLEGE. 33 

do know ; and I assert that they were. Also, I be- 
lieve that no mortal but myself had opportunity by 
the exercise of either mortal sight or mortal hearing 
to learn the contents of either of my letters, nor to 
whom either of them was addressed, until response 
to it was written in full. I deem it impossible that 
the scribe could possess knowledge of the contents 
of the letters when answers to them were penciled 
by his own hand. 

Whoever concedes that I have not been deluded, 
and that I am capable of being, have been and am, 
both cautious and truthful in these my statements, 
may — yes, must — perceive in the above correspond- 
ence proof thiit some departed spirits have communed 
with a survivor in this mundane sphere ; also, that 
Spirit President Walker's own use of a medium's 
organism to write through proves that the intelli- 
gence manifested in the production of some spirit- 
ualistic phenomena may be far other than demoniacal, 
unless Walker himself now is widely different from 
what we believed and thought we knew him to be 
when in mortal. Agassiz, as may be seen (p. 16), 
stated that President Walker viewed the intelligence 
underlying spiritual phenomena diabolical. I cannot 
view him as an outworker of Diabolism. 

The efficacy of the foregoing correspondence in 
swaying any mind toward or into belief that spirits 
return — that Modern Spiritualism is true — may be, 
naturally will be, proportionate to the estimate a 
reader has of my mental sagacity and power, of my 
truthfulness, — yes, of my integrity, in its broadest 
sense. Those who know me personally and well will 



34 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

be swayed in judgment by the knowledge they pos- 
sess. Other readers, recalling the terms in which 
my respondents address me when opening and clos- 
ing their several responses, may draw inferences from 
that source. 

My aim is public GOOD ; and in all the foregoing 
statements I carefully sought to be accurate in per- 
ception and truthful in recording, Modern Spiritual- 
ism, outflowing from recent opening of doors for free 
return of spirits of all grades, has its basis iji " The 
Nature of Things" originally involved there, de- 
signed to come into extensive operation for human- 
ity's good in both the spheres above and on earth, 
when fitting conditions — when "fullness of time" 
— for its beneficence should arrive. This rare peri- 
helion period may have brought that " Fullness." 

Have any departed spirits in this age communed 
with their surviving mortals? That is the primal 
question pertaining to Modern Spiritualism. Let us 
see. 

In what precedes it appears that seven spirits 
who each while in mortal was highly learned, well 
known and much esteemed within and widely around 
the walls of Old Harvard, and an eighth one who 
started life's labors in a blacksmith's shop, and there 
took on the hardness of an anvil, which withstood 
undented the heaviest blows of scientific hammers, 
and forced their rebound, — these eight, each for him- 
self, have distinctly, pertinently, instructively, pen- 
ciled out on palpable paper, using therefor a mortal 
medium's hand, accounts of their views, acts, expe- 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 35 

riences pertaining to the famous so-called Harvard 
Investigation of Spiritualism in 1857. 

Each of the eight did this in response to a mortal's 
letter addressed to the respondent spirit solely. Thus 
eight distinct cases have occurred, in each of which 
there was very intelligible and very instructive and 
valuable intercommunion between a mortal and a 
spirit. Each one of those responses envelopes within 
itself clear demonstration of a spirit's impartation of 
knowledge to a mortal, — yes, a demonstration of 
which I will say, in the words of Prof. Peirce, Harvard's 
most eminent mathematician, was and is "as clear 
as any mathematical demonstration." Eight emi- 
nent ones, all well known in this generation, have each 
made such a demonstration. They all agree. That 
is enough. The problem is solved. Harvard's ablest 
have solved it. They, while being spirits, have re- 
turned. So have countless others. Modern Spirit- 
ualism is a verified fact, — a momentous fact; it is 
revolutionizing and enlightening ; worthy of closest 
scrutiny by loftiest, not less than by humbler, minds. 

I am about to bring this article to a close, and 
incline to do it by quoting the last paragraph in good 
President Walker's response to me, — a paragraph 
which drew forth from the depths of my heart grati- 
tude to him, and thrilled me with joy. It is a high 
commendation of Spiritualism itself, as well as con- 
gratulation with me : — 

"You have, my dear Putnam, stood the brunt of many 
hard-fought battles since you espoused the cause of truth, — 
truth. And as I once pitied you from the depths of my 



36 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

heart for what I was confident was an error, I now envy the 
comfort you enjoy from day to day, — that you walked not 
bl,ndly, but by the light of the spirit-world, which shone not 
c- Jy into your own mind but all around you." 



The individuals previously named were, while in 
mortal, holders and adorners of positions which be- 
spoke their power to comprehend, qualify, and sway 
the tendencies of public opinion and belief. They sev- 
erally ranked high — prominently high — in the es- 
teem of both the recent past and the present genera- 
tion. They were emphatically learned and good 
men, holding and deserving public confidence in 
their wisdom, their philanthropy, and their compe- 
tency to weigh the merits and forecast the influences 
of passing events and operative beliefs, as accurately 
and well as any residents around or in the city of 
Boston. 

Such were the men who deemed the phenomena 
and teachings called spiritual pernicious in action 
upon the public mind, and therefore to be decried as 
illusive and deluding, and to be prevented, if possi- 
ble, from gaining wider credence in and stronger 
influence over society. 

No feeling, no thought, prompts me to censure any 
individual named, nor them collectively as a band 
assailing a cause which I espoused and deemed holy. 

As a Spiritualist I am thankful for what they did 
with intent to demolish the structure of my faith. 
Yet, as their fellow-being, some of them now have 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 37 

my pity that they needfully have been anguished by 
a conscious and pressing sense of hasty harshness in 
their treatment of some innocent outworkers of mar- 
vels. Now they ask forgiveness by those innocent 
ones whom they once viewed as culprits, and, solely 
to crush Spiritualism out of them and the public, 
treated with cruel severity. 

Why can I feel thankful ? Why may all Spirit- 
ualists be thankful for what such men did to abolish 
our faith? t^or myself, I make response as follows : 

Rarely, if ever, has today's Spiritualism received 
as weighty evidence that it is what its espousers 
claim, viz., that it has base on fact positive, and in- 
volves rich blessings for humanity in both mundane 
and spirit spheres, as has now been furnished in and 
by the recent writings of those decarnated Harvard 
professors, who, when in mortal, deliberately and 
vigorously assailed it, because, as viewed by them, it 
was a pernicious bubble. Their assault, combined 
with their frank confession now, when spirits, that 
they were powerless in assault, were baffled, puts 
them high among the most efficient testifiers to its 
verity and invincibility. 

The single fact that from out the realm of spirit 
they now put forth through use of a mortal's hand 
responses to my letters proves that some departed 
ones have communed with a survivor in mortal. 
Such fact alone may do more to establish conviction 
in logical and thinking minds than the whole Board 
of the College Faculty could have accomplished by 
twenty-nine years' vigorous use of their highest 
learning, keenest logic, expanded science, and fer- 



38 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

vent eloquence in exposition and advocacy of the 
cause while they wore robes of flesh. Its assailants 
once, they now reveal their incompetence when using 
their most efficient mental weapons to crush or even 
bruise it. Few others could or can wield such weap- 
ons with force equalling theirs. Where such ones 
failed, who can anticipate success? 

Had they not been assailants baffled while in mor- 
tal, no words from them now, as spirits, could take 
such tenacious hold upon the minds of their succes- 
sors in high collegiate positions, of graduates from 
colleges, of thinking, logical minds in all grades and 
classes in society, as their grasp now gets and will 
retain through all time. As skillful testers of spirit- 
ualistic metal, they found it precious, valuable for a 
currency whose worth would command wide and 
abiding circulation. Their post-mortem stamp of ap- 
proval upon it more than overbalances their mun- 
dane allegations that it was spurious. 

Investigation??? Yes, such it proved to be. 
By it discovery was made that some intelligence, 
with powers other than mortals possessed, was 
broadly applying forces among men which brought 
out into mortal view operations requiring operators 
not known by ablest mundane scientists. Who did 
this ? Harvard's abler expounders of theology, liter- 
ature, natural sciences, and mathematics combined 
did it. Their report, now made "' after twenty-nine 
years' consideration," involves such strong testimony 
that Modern Spiritualism has basis on solid fact that 
their work begins to be and is long and widely to be 
helpful to the cause of Spiritualism, that this writer 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 39 

puts those professors among — high among — efficient 
agents whose doings tend to broaden reception and 
enhance the beneficence of that revolutionizing and 
enlightening truth. Thanks to them for their attack. 

It is obvious that to make their assulting work 
beneficent, as it has now become and will be in the 
future, there was needed some dauntless Dr. Gard- 
ner, backed by unflinching supporters, upon whom 
the hammers of science might be swung with vigor 
and force. Such ones were on hand, stood their 
ground, and let science try the resisting properties 
of themselves ; those properties proved to be an 
anvil, receiving the heavy blows unharmed. 

Apart from firm resistance, there never would have 
come forth the strong — the vastly strong — proof 
that departed ones can and do, and may long hence- 
forth and in hosts, hold communings with their sur- 
vivors and successors in mortal, imparting to the 
latter accounts of personal experiences in the life be- 
yond, and teaching mortals how best to train them- 
selves as aspirants for peace and joy in the inevitable 
hereafter. 

Spirit friends, ye who projected and enacted the 
assault upon Spiritualism and Spiritualists in 1857, 
please view yourselves, far as possible, as having 
been more helpful to a vast and good cause by your 
assault upon it than you could have been by espous- 
ing and advocating it, I sincerely view you thus. 
Strong opposition to any new cause of magnitude 
and general interest draws public attention to it, 
leads to close scrutiny of its claims, reveals its weak- 
nesses, biings into view its strength, leads to fore- 



40 POST-MOBTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

castings of its future action and results. In the case 
before us you and I were on opposing sides, each 
party conscientiously believing it was advocating 
right and opposing wrong, — teaching truth and de- 
nouncing error. Thus far — and that is very far — 
we were alike. 

You — the most of you — were restrained by your 
positions, avocations, and habits of thought, from 
mingling freely with most of those people who were 
early known to be instruments through whom mar- 
vels were being manifested, and also with that grade 
of beholders who felt free to give openly and to any- 
body accounts of marvels they had witnessed or 
heard of. 

The restrictive bonds of position and avocation were 
upon each one of you, holding you mainly within 
orbits of scholastic and social circulation, within 
which was given at first scarcely a hint, or not more 
than a few vague hints, that any new thing of special 
interest was transpiring in your surrounding Naza- 
reths. I was free from any such hamperings. 

Later on, occult workers of marvels found a facile 
instrument within your accustomed orbits, and 
through that put forth such demonstrations of their 
power as led you to view their instrument as person- 
ally guilty of imposture, fraud, or diabolism, and to 
maltreat and banish him therefor. For the harsh- 
ness and cruelty bestowed by some of you upon 
Willis and Mansfield, stinging and prolonged self- 
reproach may be richly deserved and needfully en- 
dured. 

Simply as opponents of the general cause, viz., 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 41 

Spiritualism and its adherents, Walker, Felton, and 
Lunt regarded what they assailed as either diabolic 
or illusive, void of good, full of evil, and therefore to . 
be fought down. Agassiz and Peirce surmised, per- 
haps even knew, that facts existed on which the 
claims of the Spiritualists might rest firmly. Still, 
they may have viewed the influences of Spiritualism 
as they then saw them hostile to the public good, and 
warred against it from good motives. I can and do 
trust that their action against the general cause gives 
to no one of them all any regret or disquietude; also, 
I hope that they may see, and derive pleasure from 
seeing, that the assault they made has been and will 
continue long to be highly helpful in revealing the 
source of Spiritualism's emanation, and the involved 
purposes and ultimate aims of those who in realms 
above supervise the methods and processes for gain- 
ing its wide reception among such mortals as will be 
disposed and able to keep on opening, and holding 
steadily open, gates for the egress earthward of wise 
teachers and powerful helpers from realms of super- 
nal experiences and wisdom. 

On Jan. 27, 1886, at home, I wrote to Spirit C. C. 
Felton, aiming only to quench, if I could, flames of 
indignation against him which had been burning in 
the spirits' scribe — Mansfield — twenty-eight years. 
On the 29th I carried the letter to Mansfield, seek- 
ing response through him. Felton, using Mansfield's 
hands, opens his reply thus : — 

"I was with you, and so were our old but dear friends, 
Dr. Luther V. Bell, President Walker, Peirce, and H. F. 



42 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

Gardner this early morning. It was by our united action 
that you were forced to come and talk with me through the 
man I so abused while I lived in mortal." 

Why those spirits especially ? What was the re- 
lation of those parties severally to the Harvard Inves- , 
tigation, and therefore to me ? 

Prior to that time, ostensibly to myself and the 
public, Prof. Felton was main projector and manager 
of that assault upon Spiritualism. Now we learn 
that President Walker was at the head ; Prof. Peirce 
was chairman of the assulting committee, Dr. Gard- 
ner was head of the assailed party, and Dr. Bell was 
a non-partisan observer of the conflict. Thus it is 
rendered probable that my writing to Felton on Jan- 
uary 27th was known by those spirits before, or 
surely on the early morning of the 29th, though the 
letter was all the while in my own keeping, its very- 
existence known by no mortal but myself, yet as a 
band it is claimed they put upon me a force which 
carried me forthwith to the spirits' scribe. Fair infer- 
ence from this is that the response to my letter had 
been agreed upon by, and had the approval of, that 
special band as a whole. Though not myself medium- 
istic enough to be conscious of promptings and sway 
by spirits, yet I give credence to affirmations that 
they do at times prompt acts which I perform ; and 
especially such as pertain to the cause of Spiritual- 
ism. Prospectively even then they may have seen 
the sequel down to this time, though I then had no 
aim beyond that of changing Mansfield's feelings 
toward Felton. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 43 

Felton (see p. 10). — This man, no doubt, hon- 
estly and sincerely thought that people were being 
led on by Spiritualism " to follow a bubble " that 
would, in his opinion, " burst in the near future." 
He acted conscientiously and for what he believed 
was public good ; he however was too harsh in action 
and speech. But manfully he now " freely and fully 
begs Mansfield's pardon." Says also that he and 
Eustis are ready to " proclaim to the world " their 
"wrong-doings with young Willis." Also, that he 
now knows " that Mansfield is all that he has pro- 
fessed, or all that is claimed for him, by his friends." 

It is pleasing to hear Mansfield say, as he does, 
that since that acknowledgment was made the fires 
of his resentment against Felton which had been 
burning for twenty-eight years have fully died out. 

My sole aim in writing the first letter in the fore- 
going series was fully attained at that time, and no 
intention or desire then existed in my mind to extend 
my correspondence with supernals. 

Agassiz (see p. 15). — After the publication of 
Felton's communication, and as a result from it, I 
was prompted by a letter from A. J. Heinsohn, of 
Cleveland, O., to write to Spirit Prof. Agassiz. Did 
so, and in that spirit's response I first found that the 
famous Harvard onslaught upon Spiritualism was 
deliberately 'planned by the College Faculty, under the 
leading of President Walker. Found, also, that 
Agassiz went into the conflict less in obedience to 
perception of falsity in Spiritualism than to the wishes 
of the College president. 



44 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

By saying as he does that he differed less from me 
than the public generally supposed, he at least hints 
that he apprehended that something more firm than 
Felton's " bubble " was to be encountered, yet he did 
not view it as an adamantine wall, for he says they 
made assaults " believing they could demolish the 
structure," but soon found they " were powerless in 
the matter." 

The world's need of Spiritualism can hardly be 
stated more strongly than it is when one such as he 
says : " The unexplainable phenomena exhibited by the 
mediums were my only evidence or hope of a conscious 
individuality beyond the tomb.' 99 A great if not the 
chief difficulty in getting the source of the phenomena 
of Spiritualism correctly determined is the non-per- 
sistence of leaders in science when they encounter 
phenomena not explainable by what they already 
know. Even the great Agassiz says distinctly that 
he turned his back upon and gave a wide berth to 
phenomena because they baffled his skill to explain 
their source and quality. Such procedure manifests 
good reason why now, as in a former age, supernal 
prescience and wisdom revealed new truths to babes 
first rather than to the wise and prudent. 

In connection with anything seen but yet not ap- 
pearing within the explored realm of outward nature, 
the greater and more renowned the scientist the less 
is he willing to concede the existence of a reputed 
marvelous fact, or, if conceding that much, is less 
willing to put its reality and its claims as to the 
source of issuance to rigid, logical test. The tether- 
ings of position and reputation hold the learned back 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 45 

from rangings into the realms of mystery. The less 
learned and less great are more free to enter and ex- 
plore such domain. What an Agassiz could not 
explain by his science, he turned his back upon. 

Walker (see p. 18).- — Special attention is asked 
to the response made by President Walker, who, not 
only by his position, but also, in my view, as a man, 
broadly unfolded, strong, firm, wise, and good, some- 
what out-ranked either of his subordinates. See how 
gratefully he opens his reply to me : " I thank you, 
doubly so, for allowing me an opportunity to express 
my regrets for my course toward Spiritualism when 
I was in the body mortal." 

Some mortals express wonder why spirits who in- 
nocently held erroneous views of matters while here 
which led them from good motives to act so harshly 
and unwisely that, when released from the body, they 
feel a need and have a strong desire to make confes- 
sion and ask forgiveness earthward — some I say — 
wonder why such omit to do so through any one of 
the many mediumistic mortals. My response is that 
conditions on this side, well fitted for so doing, may 
be of very rare occurrence, because such conditions 
rarely can be brought about by the spirits alone. 
Mortals usually have an important part to perform in 
furnishing fit conditions for such operations. Often 
among the necessary conditions may be the presence 
of, or a call from, a mortal who is in mental and emo- 
tional mood and condition to welcome, appreciate, 
and wisely use what shall be put forth. For some 
reason "thanks, doubly so" were given in this case 



46 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

for the furnishing of ''opportunity to express re- 
grets." President Walker, doubtless, was well aware 
that no other graduate from Harvard, scarcely any 
other mortal survives, who was both so well ac- 
quainted with the harsh treatment of Willis, and the 
rash attack of the assaulting committee, as myself. 
The terms in which he addresses me, I think, imply 
his confidence — a very helpful condition — that I 
would seek to avoid other than beneficent use of 
whatever he might say. 

He feelingly states that now it would give him 
much pleasure to take young Willis by the hand, and 
confess his error ; asks me to go and take Willis by 
the hand, and ask him to forgive and forget, saying, 
also, that he would be with me in so doing. I did go, 
not doubting that he was with me, and gained relief 
thereby. 

I am apprehensive that this good man's memory 
failed to serve him fully when he says that the 
Faculty only gave Willis permission to resign con- 
nection with the Divinity School ; according to my 
memory, they expelled him. 

Scarcely any other statements in all my corres- 
pondence with these assailants of Spiritualism have 
given me so much surprise as Agassiz's remarks ; 
one that President Walker was at their head, and the 
other that he deemed the intelligence underlying the 
phenomena of Spiritualism " demoniacal" That 
president himself now freely confesses that though 
"not in the front ranks of the battle .... so far as 
advice was needed or solicited, he was not coy in 
imparting it." 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 47 

That any other cultured and able theologian than 
Prof. Phelps, of Andover, and those akin to him, 
should have deemed these modern outworkings from 
the realms of mystery demoniacal astonishes me. I 
know their likes were so viewed in the days of Salem 
witchcraft, and the lessons of that age show that 
mortal combats with the devil are waged and prose- 
cuted with direful havoc and suffering among mor- 
tals. I am loth to view such statement by President 
Walker as other than a casual remark dropped in a 
state of bewilderment. The candor, warm sympathy, 
kindness, and deep regrets for acts which erroneous 
views of strange phenomena led him to perform, 
cause that beloved and venerated president to be by 
no means less, but even more highly, elevated than 
ever before in my esteem, and to be much more 
warmly loved by me than he would have been but 
for a course which brought him to be testor of the 
genuineness of spirit return, and as such subse- 
quently to become prominent among the most credi- 
ble attestors of the fact of its genuineness by means 
of his own response to a mundane epistle now while 
he dwells in spirit land. May his mundane errors of 
perception, and consequent seeming wrongs in action, 
come to be, as I conceive they eventually may be 
viewed by himself, as his mainly instrument ally or 
mediumistically, he having been used by higher intel- 
ligences for putting to crucial test the fact of spirit 
return. Thus could he be made a more efficient 
promulgator of that momentous fact — fact pregnant 
with blessings — than he could have been through 



48 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

advocacy of it by his able pen and persuasive tongue. 
Good from seeming evil. 

The following letter to President Walker, written 
when the scribe, Mansfield, was absent from the 
city, and the response after his return, were not at 
command till after the president's former letter was 
in print, otherwise the two would have been placed 
together : — 

46 Clarendon St., Boston, Sept. 14, 1886. 
Spirit Rev. James Walker, D. D., President of Harvard 

College in 1857 : 

Highly-Esteemed Friend, — On March 6th, in response 
to a letter from me, you, in reference to the case of young 
Willis, said that he had " permission to resign (for that was 
really all that it was)." Now, both he and myself have 
published our dissent from the truth of what you enclosed 
in parentheses. According to his knowledge and my firm 
belief, he declined to avail of that privilege to resign, and 
consequently was expelled. Our statements imply that either 
we or you have put forth an untruth. We are not inclined 
to change our statements, and must leave you in a position 
not pleasant for me to contemplate, and I think it cannot be 
otherwise to yourself. My desire is, in my account of the 
College Faculty's treatment of Willis and of Spiritualism, 
to put forth nothing but the exact truth, and therefore feel 
in duty bound to furnish you opportunity to make such 
statements in reference to the difference between your state- 
ment and ours as are in harmony with your view of the facts. 

In sincere kindness and high esteem, and in gratitude for 

your kind remarks to myself, very respectfully your friend 

now, as I was while you were in mortal, 

Allen Putnam. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 49 

RESPONSE BY PRESIDENT WALKER. 

"Dear Putnam, — Yours of Sept. 14th is before me; and 
for explanation of what is said in my letter of March 6th 
let me explain what I intended. My meaning of that mat- 
ter was, your young friend Willis was, as I understood it, 
allowed to resign ; and, if he would not avail himself of the 
offer, then all the Faculty could do was to drop him out. 
It would have afforded the Faculty great pleasure to have 
had Mr. Willis accepted that proffered him ; but he would 
not, and, as I viewed the matter, Willis expelled himself. 

" You see, my friend Putnam, taking the stand the Harvard 
professors did (although we know it was wrong in the extreme) , 
yet we had to drop Willis after his refusal to accept the 
only escape that was left him from expulsion under the 
rules and regulations of that college. 

" Most kindly, your friend and brother, 

" James Walker." 

From this it appears that, by the "rales and regu- 
lations of Harvard College," a permission to resign, 
if not availed of, must be followed by expulsion ; and, 
therefore, the permission involves expulsion, and em- 
braces all that was done in the Willis case. Permis- 
sion there is made too comprehensive in meaning. 

Lunt (see p. 24). — Next comes Hon. George 
Lunt, who left his mortal form not till early in 1885. 
He gives a rapid but clear account of his agreement 
to aid the Faculty through his paper — Boston Courier 
— in their assault upon what was distasteful to him,, 
and seemed belittling. He went into the work in 
good conscience; and I, from personal observation at 



50 POST-MOHTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

the trial, know that at the outset he was as resolutely 
and unflinchly pugnacious as any one of the assail- 
ants. But reflections upon the abilities and standing 
of many avowed Spiritualists soon after moderated his 
ardor ; yet he thought best to hold on even to " a 
troublesome elephant " for a while, and postpone re- 
port to some future time. He saw too many recruits 
joined the other side ; also, his associates had explo- 
sions in their own camp, bursting forth from both 
Agassiz and Felton. He closes with the significant 
statement that a host of intelligent spirits recently 
concluded, upon deliberate consultation, " that the 
revelations of today were only stepping-stones to 
those more mighty in the near distance," 

Putnam (see p. 26). — Rev. George Putnam, D.D., 
confesses freely that he believed spirits returned 
while he occupied the pulpit, but then he deemed it 
prudent not to avow it openly. The same is true 
today, I think, in the case of more than half of the 
liberal clergymen in this vicinity. I also wonder — 
as he says spirits Drs. Lothrop and Channing do — 
" that the churches attempt to stand in open opposi- 
tion to the very ground-work of their faith." He 
says, too, that " aside from evidence manifested to 
mortals of another life through spirit communion, there 
is none whatsoever." 

I can see the twinkle of his eye when, speaking of 
the Harvard investigators, he calls them " the now 
more repenting crowd,"' — hinting, perhaps, that he 
himself needed to repent a little for his course in re- 
gard to Spiritualism. Be that as it may, he did not 



OFFICERS OF HARVAItD COLLEGE. 51 

oppose the cause, nor dread its action upon his par- 
ishioners. The hesitancy of such a man, in the high 
position he held in his denomination, in his official 
connection with Harvard College, and in public 
esteem generally, his hesitancy to openly espouse 
Spiritualism, may be deemed censurable by many 
people, especially by Spiritualists ; but his course — 
which was letting the matter alone, letting it work 
on, neither decried nor commended — was as well, I 
doubt not — was, perhaps, better for the cause of 
Spiritualism itself than would have resulted had 
there been, as almost inevitably there must, disturb- 
ance in his parish and the community if he openly 
and frequently preached Spiritualism under its own 
name. As the rose would smell as sweet under 
any other name, so the essence of Spiritualism, which 
he often poured out, would be as operative unnamed 
as if specifically labeled, and be even more widely 
acceptable. 

During a few years in early life I was in the min- 
istry, and often deemed it prudent, when viewing my 
relations to the parish, to be guarded in speech upon 
topics other than purely religious, if the topics were 
highly interesting to the public, and upon which 
public opinion was divided. Prudence ranks well 
up among those virtues which are the eventual out- 
workers of beneficence. Though Spiritualism is modi- 
fying religions, it comes not simply as a religion; it 
makes its first appeals to science, to reason, to logic. 
Till these establish the fact of spirit return, the 
clergy may be most helpful to its advance by leaving 
it undiscussed. 



52 POST-MOHTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

Peiece (see p. 28). — Prof, Peirce, chairman of the 
investigating committee, and nearly the rival of 
Agassiz in the management of the operations (those 
two receiving but little active aid from their two 
much younger, and then much less renowned, asso- 
ciates), speaks out in frankness, showing himself to 
have been strongest of them all in moral bravery — - 
was willing to avow publicly that they were unable 
to account for the facts, In this he is supported by 
Lunt. 

Spiritualists had demonstrated their claims as 
clearly to his mind "as any problem of mathemat- 
ics." u BuC] says he, " holding the position I did, 
I could not^m contrariety to the ideas sustained by 
the Faculty." He says distinctly he " did not witt- 
ingly enter the contest," and "did protest against 
it." He closes — and, I think, thereby receiving as. 
well as giving pleasure — with the statement that 
" after twenty-nine years of deliberation we have 
given our views of that long-promised Report." 
Fullness of time for the report to appear was not till 
now. Earlier, while the reporters were in mortal, 
the report would have been less valuable. 

Many readers probably will not be in mental mood 
to perceive probable correctness in the supposition 
which the writer's mind inclines to hold, viz., that 
from its inception to its close, now with a report 
from the spirit spheres, the assault of the Harvard 
Faculty upon Spiritualism, together with its result- 
ant sequels, have measurably been under the super- 
vision and sway of supernal prescience, wisdom, and 
power, and so prosecuted that the assailants should 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 53 

eventually not only be themselves demonstrators of 
the truth they assailed, but also should personally 
make demonstrating record of its verity by their use 
severally of a mortal hand. That much they have 
done. The reporting process itself was spiritual, 
and proves spirit communion with one mortal to 
have been a verity, — the very thing that was to be 
demonstrated, and now has been, by Harvard's ablest 
mathematicians and others. 

Bell (see p. 29). — We have done with the college 
attaches. Next comes a non-partisan observer, yet 
an equal in attainments and public esteem to the 
leading actors in the battle, Dr. Luther V. Bell, head 
manager of the McLean Asylum for the Insane. 

This searcher for and lover of facts witnessed 
many phenomena called spiritual, but never such 
ones as gave him full conviction that they were put 
forth by beings who had once been men or women on 
earth's surface. Indeed, he had doubts up to the 
close of his mundane life whether man was destined 
to live beyond the grave, — he could only hope for a 
future life. 

How strongly that state of such a mind teaches 
the desirableness of so distinct and extensive return 
by spirits as shall banish all doubt upon a subject so 
interwoven in the mental states of every thoughtful, 
fore-gazing intellect. Not till he passed out of the 
mortal did he get satisfying response to the question 
"If a man die, shall he live again?" Passing out, 
his doubts were instantly ended ; for at once he 
grasped the hands of old earth acquaintances, — hands 



54 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

as palpable to his spirit hand, as solid and substan- 
tial to the touch, as had been their mortal hands in 
his mortal grasp. Nothing is ghostly about a spirit 
as seen and handled by a spirit. 

The earnestness in which Dr. Bell announces that 
Luther V. Bell lives, also that this old acquaintance 
and that one lives, bespeaks in him intense pleasure 
and joy that his doubts have been solved, and per- 
haps indicates in him a strong desire to so emphati- < 
cally announce the fact that he lives as to give con- 
viction to doubting mortal minds that they surely 
will live beyond the tomb. His case, like that of 
Agassiz, indicates that scientific searchers of highest 
order are probably more liable than most others to 
find weakness in one reputed evidence of a future 
life after another till they have set aside all evidence 
on which the mass of mortals confidingly rest, and 
get themselves enveloped in thick and cheerless mists 
of doubt. With Luther V. Bell the problem is solved. 
Though he has died to earth, he still lives, and so 
reports. 

Gardner (see p. 31). — Last, but by no means 
the most sorrowful comer, was Dr. Henry F. Gard- 
ner. It is pleasant to see that in the realms beyond, 
when consulting bands of college officials gathered 
from time to time to decide upon what should be put 
forth in response to my letters, we find with them 
their mundane contestant, Dr. Gardner. 

Felton, the first to respond, says: "I was with 
you, and so were our old but dear friends, Dr. Luther 
V. Bell, President Walker, Peirce, and H.F, Gardner, 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD- COLLEGE. 55 

early this morning. It was by our united action that 
you were forced to come and talk with me." Thus 
at the outset it appears Walker, the head of the Col- 
lege Faculty, Peirce, Chairman of their Committee, 
Dr. Gardner, leader of their opponents, and Luther 
V. Bell, the non-partisan looker-on, united their 
forces to bring me into converse with Felton. A 
band consisting of those special co-workers upon me 
suggests the probability that even then, when my 
aim was only to lessen or extinguish Mansfield's 
wrath toward Felton, they foresaw the extended and 
important sequel, They then, designedly perhaps, 
harnessed me for vastly more work than I suspected. 

Gardner's statement is that he was a " silent looker- 
on " at the correspondence between me and the 
others ; that it gave him great joy " to see them 
throw up the glove." 

What interests and impresses me most in his ac- 
count is the statement that he "never met a more 
pleased set of spirits than they were that they had 
unburdened their troubled souls." " They do not," 
he says, " look like the same spirits." 

Such statement indicates that " confession, good 
for the soul " here, is so even for the soul of a spirit 
after its release from earth, when it can and does 
reach a wronged or injured mortal to be the fitting 
receiver of the confession. The lesson is here taught 
that opening wide the doors for return to the mun- 
dane sphere may give many a burdened spirit unpre- 
cedented opportunity to gain relief by confession 
earthward. Wrongs are easiest and best righted 
where they were perpetrated. 



56 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

Before bringing this article to its close, mention 
should be made that when commenting upon Prof. 
Felton's letter of Feb. 27 (see p. 10), I too sweepingly 
claimed to be the only graduate from Harvard who 
has advocated Spiritualism on the rostrum or in the 
public press over his own name. There is one 
notable exception as to use of the pen. Thos. B. 
Hall, Esq., of Boston, has ably and w T ell put forth 
the finer essence of Spiritualism in books and articles 
over his name ; and, in so doing, while tethered by 
the restraining cords which rope the members of a 
profession within defined limits, has exhibited much 
more courage than was needful in my case. 

Moral courage and love of truth surely were not 
and are not greater in me than in very many of the 
clergymen and others among us. It is therefore need- 
ful for me to presume that had I remained in the 
ministry I should not have been the contestant I was 
against my old associates in Mother Harvard's Halls. 
I claim no merit for my course, but am grateful for 
early bereavements and debility which induced me 
to unbind and throw aside the bands which limit 
ranges for mental roving by the devotees to either 
of the three learned professions, or by eminent scien- 
tists and philosophers. 

Though it be a fact that Thos. B. Hall, Esq., and 
myself are the only graduates from Harvard who 
have in print over their own names to much, if any, 
extent advocated and expounded Spiritualism, — and 
that I myself am the only one who in this vicinity 
has advocated it upon the rostrum, it is not to be in- 
ferred that no other Harvard graduates have freely 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 57 

and openly avowed belief of it. Judge Willard 
Phillips, of Cambridge ; Judge Joseph G. Waters, 
of Salem ; James Furbish, of Portland, made open 
declaration of their reception of it. Very many oth- 
ers have been and are known by me to believe it 
who have deemed it prudent not to say so openly. 

The chief early advocates of the cause in this 
vicinitjr had their prior education elsewhere than at 
Harvard. Rev. Adin Ballou, Rev. Herman Snow, 
Rev. John M. Spear, Rev. John Pierpont, Epes Sar- 
gent, A. E. Newton, Luther Colby, John S. Adams, 
Judge Ladd, of Cambridge, Rev. Mr. Mountford, and 
other early expounders of this cause, were not sons 
of Alma Mater — Nourishing Mother — Harvard. 

Dr. Gardner closes with an exhortation that I 
" spare no pains to place the correspondence before 
the world." He adds that "it will be as well re- 
ceived as it has been anxiously looked for." " Rejoice," 
he says, " my dear Putnam, that you live to read and 
publish the long-looked-for report." 

My cousin, Rev. George Putnam, expressed his 
joy that my days had been prolonged till I could get 
and publish this account. Because of anticipated 
beneficence which in both the mundane and super- 
nal spheres may naturally outflow from the procure- 
ment and publication of the preceding correspondence, 
I do rejoice that my life in mortal has been prolonged 
till this special work was accomplished. More for 
that than for aught else do. I rejoice that my span of 
life stretched on till it embraces fourscore-and-three 
years and nine months. 

No other mortal is likely to, hardly can, experience 



58 POST-MOBTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

joy born of the foregoing revelations that shall equal 
what thence has come to me. I early had to view 
Spiritualism as the harbinger and enfold er of vast 
light and aid to immortal dwellers on both sides of 
the line between the mortal and the spirit realm. 
Advocacy of it brought me into and held me in pro- 
longed conflict with old associates and friends, who 
looked upon me not simply as a deluded one, but 
also as the leader of others into harmful errors. 
Being such in their view, their thoughts and feel- 
ings, and in many cases their deportment, have been 
a depressing weight upon my shoulders ; and from 
none others has there come upon me weight more 
taxing to my powers of endurance than from the 
members of the Faculty of Harvard College. Thank 
heaven that part of the burden is not only taken off 
now, but the hands that imposed it are now put forth 
to help me bear up under whatever pressure may 
come upon me from other sources. 

In a portion of broad nature's mental and emo- 
tional domain, which was first revealed to my vision 
by the morning rays of Modern Spiritualism's light, 
a young upshoot from the soil there soon attracted 
my careful attention. The mental eye saw it labeled 
with promise that it would contribute largely to 
u The Healing of the Nations." Since then it has 
become well rooted, and is vigorous in its growth, 
promising to yield good fruit bountifully from this 
time onward through the coming ages. Thanks to 
the Infinite Gardener that He has employed me to 
aid in the culture of such a tree when it was but a 
sapling in nursery. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 59 



SUPPLEMENT. 



Introductory. — The contents of the preceding 
pages have previously gone before the public piece- 
meal in the Banner of Light. Now, as they are to 
go forth in other form, various questions or points 
pertinent to Modern Spiritualism solicit exposition. 
Many such arise which must be left unnoticed in 
this small work, yet a few will be briefly considered 
here. 

Because of rare peculiarities pertaining to the 
methods and process by which the richest contents 
of the preceding pages were obtained ; because, also, 
of the high characters and positions of men when in 
mortal, who, after release from the body, have each 
for himself (using therefor a mortal's hand) written 
response to a letter addressed to each of them by a 
mortal ; because of these striking peculiarities, this 
small work may, from curiosity if no other motive, 
be looked into by many well-educated — even highly 
educated — persons, who possess little knowledge of 
or sympathy with operations of spirits in the present 
century ; by some, also, and perhaps not a few, who, 
having a little knowledge concerning their workings, 
think they know enough to justify Spiritualism's 
denunciation and discardal. 

No surprise is felt that many, being entirely ignor- 
ant of its recondite yet firmly inherent and vast 



60 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

powers, also little of the breadth of its cope in action, 
of its destined results and of its supervisors, incline 
to keep aloof from it so long as to them it shall seem 
repulsive, narrow, low. Many who thus regard the 
general subject may themselves be deserved recipi- 
ents of high esteem for their culture, for philan- 
thropy, and the beneficence of their lives. Some 
such are not averse to perusal of brief statements 
upon any subject in which large numbers of men and 
women, both respectable and otherwise, are deeply 
interested, provided the statements are put forth by 
a student of the subject who is not in disrepute, nor 
suspected of being a rash appugner of public good. 

For such readers especially a few pages will be 
furnished in which the author will present some of 
the many views he, by much study of the subject, 
has been led to entertain, to prize, and to desire 
adoption of by all true philanthropists and workers 
for the promotion of broad humanity's welfare. 

Any supposed difference between the source and 
quality of forces outworking Modern and prior Spirit- 
ualism or spirit return exists more in the views mor- 
tals, especially enlightened mortals in Christendom, 
have been accustomed to take in reference to permis- 
sions and helps by which returns from beyond the 
tomb become possible than in any actual difference. 
Such returns having heretofore extensively been 
deemed miraculous, and miracle having implied some 
suspension or supercedure of natural law by either 
God or Devil, the conclusion has prevailed that such 
returns are not provided for within the realm of 
nature. That view is now extensively superceded, 



OFFICERS OF HARVAKD COLLEGE. 61 

because the world, or the most enlightened portion 
of it, has advanced to a stage of intelligence which 
discerns that such return is at least probably pro- 
vided for within nature, and that finite, though 
supernal, intelligence has devised and is devising 
ways and means for its much wider extension now 
than in the days of Ancient Seers, Prophets, Dis- 
ciples, Apostles, and various succeeding illuminati: 

The reader's attention will soon be drawn to some 
views as to present extraordinary action of mighty 
natural forces, either mundane or supernal, lying 
back of all finite intelligence, which in this century 
are operating upon our globe in all grades of its 
animated occupants in more than their usual quan- 
tum of volume and energy, thereby evolving marked 
changes in our world's conditions and needs, — 
changes which are demanding and are to get through 
nature increased quantity, improved quality, and 
new facilities for obtaining the supplies appropriate 
to advanced stages of the globe itself, and of its 
occupants in both the mundane and the spirit 
spheres. 

Facts will justify positive assertion that during the 
last forty years numerous thousands, probably a 
score or two of millions of beings, each claiming to 
once have been a mortal and now to be a spirit, have 
so spoken or acted on this mortal plane as to gain 
recognition here. This indicates great change of 
some kind, which in our day furnishes departed ones 
with either unprecedented facilities, or awakens in 
them unprecedented desires, or incites them to un- 
precedented efforts for return, or at least for gaining 



62 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

recognized action in our mundane sphere. An im- 
portant question now is : Whence have come and 
what the character of the increased facilities or the 
increased desires and successful efforts? 

The reader is asked to put in complete abeyance, 
if possible, when seeking to answer or when viewing 
another's answer to that question, all preconceived 
views of either God's modes of special action or special 
action upon mortals by anyone vast malignant being, 
and view this matter in the spirit of a calm scientist 
seeking to verify or to disprove an alleged fact, let 
its bearings be what they may. 

Planetary Influences. — Some vast natural 
forces during this writer's thirty years' study and 
reflections (induced and aided to much extent by in- 
terviews and communings with wise departed ones) 
have been brought to his notice, and gained his 
acceptance, as probably having been and being both 
needful and vastly efficient operators in bringing 
today's wide-spreading Spiritualism forth from Na- 
ture's womb. 

This rare perihelion period may have been our special 
Spiritualism's predestined birth-time. It seems prob- 
able that the present rare position of the planets has 
caused and is causing them to be giving increase of 
stimulus beyond their ordinary bestowments to our 
globe itself, and to all its occupants in all its spheres. 
Even prior to the middle of the present century an 
increase probably began and gradually has been 
augmenting up to the present time. 

You ask: "How is it that the present particular 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 63 

position of the planets can cause them to be more 
energizingly operative upon our earth than they are 
when in their more common positions in relation to 
the sun?" 

If we trust geologists, astronomers, astrologers 
(dealers with the spiritual counterpart of astronomy), 
and scientists mundane and spiritual, we may find in 
their combined teachings probability that oar mate- 
rial globe, from its fiery center up through its solid 
crust, through all its varieties of vegetable and ani- 
mal life, and not less up through all its spirit spheres 
and their occupants, may be, and probably is, during 
this latter half of this nineteenth century more highly 
charged with magnetic and electrical forces, and its 
living beings also charged with more physical, men- 
tal, and emotional forces than such can be supplied 
with oftener than once in a little more than twenty- 
two hundred years. Why so ? Because not oftener 
than that do so many of the large outer planets of 
our solar system, all at the same time, make their 
nearest approach to the sun, — their perihelion. 

Those planets, as well as our earth, have derived, 
and do continually derive, all that they are and have 
from the sun, which is the common parent and con- 
stant nourisher of each member in our planetary 
family. Yet not all that earth or any other planet 
gets comes into it directly from the sun itself; for 
the planets are continually acting upon and being 
acted upon by each other ; are ever giving to and 
receiving from each other. The quantity of each and 
all of the various forces imparted to earth at any par- 
ticular time by a planet depends upon — is measured 



64 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

by — the amount possessed by the imparting planet 
at the time of the impartation. 

Just as the nearer a mortal gets to a heated stove 
the greater is the amount of heat he absorbs ; so the 
nearer any planet gets to the sun, the greater be- 
comes the amount of that planet's inherent forces of 
all kinds, physical and mental, astronomical and 
astrological. Therefore, when at its nearest approach 
to the sun, — at its perihelion, — its own forces will be 
at their maximum volume, and therefore then will be 
the time at which it will most abundantly emit ener- 
gizing forces upon its brother and sister planets. 

At the present time — in this last half of the pres- 
ent century — our earth, and all who dwell, and that 
is in any portion of it, from its fiery center up to the 
uppermost verge of its highest spirit sphere, are re- 
ceiving more quickening forces from the planets, 
viewing them as one mass or body, than the planets 
have been in condition to bestow upon us at any 
previous point of time during something more than 
the whole Christian era. Their increase of forces 
puts earth relatively into an unusually negative or 
receptive condition. 

Our planet's present quantum of absorbed planet- 
ary force is now made high above its average by the 
present positions of its kindred planets. And this 
augmentation of such force is viewed by this author 
as one very efficient, if not the main, natural cause of 
our globe's unusual amount of physical disturbances, 
— such as volcanoes, cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, 
earthquakes, and the like, — producing also more 
mental activity and restlessness in the dwellers, brute 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 65 

and human, on earth's material surface, and also 
throughout all of its spirit spheres, — activity which 
outworks marvelous amounts of inventions, discover- 
ies, products of many, of almost countless, kinds, and 
a mental restlessness which is engendering unprece- 
dented discontentments with existing institutions, 
religious, governmental, social, industrial. The pres- 
ent unprecedented discontents with all these are, to 
much extent, in this writer's view, natural and neces- 
sary outgrowths from, or products of, forces originally 
inherent in the primary elements of our material 
globe and other planets, embodied therein at the 
vastly remote time of the incipiency of each globe's 
formation, and designed, even then, whenever the 
fitting time and conditions should come to so work, 
and now may be so working upon this earth as to 
disturb and take away very much which we deem 
good, which we have learned to prize and desire to 
retain. 

Our world is studded with idols and fetiches, some 
of which mortals of all grades — of all degrees of 
mental and spiritual unfoldment — cling to as their 
trusted guides and helpers. Bibles, creeds, churches, 
sects, parties, fashions, habits, varied in kind, consci- 
ously or unconsciously, are worshiped and clung to 
as guides and saviors. All this may have been well 
— may have been as good as our world (spirit spheres 
included) has been fitted to use advantageously in 
its prior stages of growth, refinement, unfoldment. 
But the globe, and all things and beings pertaining 
to it, are steadily, though to us it seems very slowly, 
refining. At successive epochs in its progress, ex- 



66 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

tensions and increased facilities for intercommunings 
between its severed occupants, — between not those 
only on the mundane plane, but between all grades 
of its children in all its realms, — may be helpful and 
advantageous to all. 

As man's discoveries and inventions by which 
within the present century he has compelled steam 
to operate as a vast motive power, giving unprece- 
dented facilities for intercommunings between widely 
severed dwellers on its material surface, and also so 
harnessed and trained electricity as to make that 
flash information across oceans and continents to our 
mundane world's advantage, so also when conditions 
exist amid which extended intercommunings can be 
conducive to the ultimate good of all in all of the 
earth's spheres, even though the changes come as 
births accompanied by dreadful forebodings, by in- 
tense sufferings and hardships to many mortals, still 
forces latent in nature will and must bring them 
forth at the "fullness of time" for their destined 
outworkings. 

Prevalent iconoclasms- — breakings of our idols — 
shockings of our sense of propriety, refinement, wis- 
dom, goodness, crude and distasteful as they are to 
vast many mortals, may be nature's needful processes 
in preparing ways for good results from a long pre- 
destined oncoming of better things in the various 
spheres pertaining to our globe; better material pro- 
ducts, better views of God's ways of governing, bet- 
ter beliefs, institutions, and habits, to begin to come 
forth coincidently with this century's rare perihe- 
lion. 



officers of iiahvald college. 67 

Nature's methods, processes, instrumentalities for 
bettering the conditions of humanity are so widely 
different from what either you or I might have 
recommended that it is not always an easy matter to 
get into condition to approve of her course. But her 
views are vastly broader than ours, her penetration 
is deeper, her gaze more far-reaching, her waitings 
upon the lapse of time much calmer than ours. 
Whether we approve of her course or not, she will 
pursue it, and our wisest way is to trust in her guid- 
ance, accept her offerings because they are hers, for 
she, better than we, know what is best for the whole 
of humanity. 

As well attempt to thwart and hold back the natu- 
ral oncoming and action of the rising tides, or any 
tidal wave of old ocean, as the natural advancement 
and action of the present planet-born rising tide or 
tidal wave of mentality and its outworkings in all of 
earth's spheres, among which outworkings a widened 
opening of doors, improvements in methods, instru- 
mentalities, facilities, and inducements for return by 
spirits may be included. 

As before indicatedj this student of teachings and 
operations by spirits thinks he perceives this peri- 
helion period bears strong appearances of being a 
"fullness of time " for opening much wider than ever 
before, and furnishing unprecedented facilities and 
inducements for, free return by any spirits possessing 
the needful knowledge and power who have ever 
gone forth into the spirit realms. The Infinite Ruler 
" works not by partial but by general laws," ever 



68 .POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

applying general ones " without variableness or 
shadow of turning." 

Openers of the Gates. — That provision exists 
in the constitution of broad nature for some amount 
of spirit return, and cognizable action by some spirits 
upon and through some mortals, is made clearly 
apparent by -the evidence history furnishes that in 
all ages, and in all tribes and nations, such return 
has been viewed as positive fact. Surely both sacred 
and other history combined clearly teaches that in 
all ages belief has existed that some predecessors in 
the realms beyond the tomb have reappeared and 
spoken and wrought among mortals. 

Now, the question is, may not the advance in 
knowledge and power among both spirits and mor- 
tals have reached a predesigned point of unfoldment 
at which such return might wisely and beneficently 
be vastly extended? The same waters and winds 
have existed through thousands of years, on and 
through which mortals now move rapidly, and in 
vast multitudes, from continent to continent, and 
around the entire globe, which but few could do in 
former ages. Not till within the present century 
had man reached conditions which enabled him to 
attain the knowledge and skill by which it has be- 
come feasible for such extensive intercommunings as 
are now held between dwellers whose homes are on 
different continents. It is claimed by returning ones 
that advances have recently been, and are being, 
made by spirits in their own knowledge of and power 



OFFICERS OF HA11VAKD COLLEGE 69 

to use the natural forces needful for return to and 
communing with mortals. 

Anyone wearing material robes must be learned 
indeed who can deny safely the truth of such state- 
ment. If both those who have gained release from 
mortal form, and those who are robed in flesh, are 
making progress in getting command over natural 
forces, why wonder that they gain and use new facili- 
ties, whereby come forth vastly extended intercom- 
m unings between dwellers in mundane and in the 
spirit spheres? Man's advances in physical sciences 
up to where hosts of its ablest devotees are conclud- 
ing that palpable matter is all, that protoplasm is the 
common vitalizing parent of all, and that physical 
death ends all, may be a point of time at which the 
All Prescient Ruler designed such a rush of return- 
ers from beyond the grave as would prove to scient- 
ists that protoplasms are but channels through which 
flow vital forces existing in a sphere which mundane 
science cannot itself explore. u Spiritual things are 
spiritually discerned." Spirits can prove existence 
in a realm untouched by mortal scientists. 

Having viewed our material globe as being more 
energetic in physical action now than in recent preced- 
ing centuries, attention turns to the comparative pres- 
ent with the past mental and emotional activities and 
states of man — earth's highest offspring, man — 
whether in mortal robes here or resident in the 
spheres beyond. Highly unfolded spirits are teach- 
ing that they no less than we are subject to con- 
tinuous inward promptings, desires, and needs to 
acquire by study and labor new knowledge of the 



70 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

laws, operations, enfoldments, and unfoldinents of 
nature ; also, to devise new methods whereby to meet 
the demands of their own growing aspirations, wants, 
and duties as they move onward in their appropriate 
courses of labor, 

Advanced and highly illumined spirits are teach- 
ing that the process by which many, if not most of 
themselves, can best attain to higher than their pres- 
ent states of spiritual unfoldments and joys is to 
labor lovingly in giving instruction and aid to any 
of human race less advanced than themselves,— to 
be warm-hearted helpers of those below them, to de- 
vise ways by which to bear light to the benighted, 
cheer to the desponding, strength to the feeble, com T 
fort to the sorrowing, whether such ones abide in 
some lower sphere of spirit realms or are held down 
to earth because encased in material bodies. 

The vast mental expansion and the far-reaching 
prescience of bright ones aloft enabled them, far in 
advance of mortal scientists, to see, or at least to 
fore-sense, definite outgrowths possible from the 
oncoming and natural action of the present peri- 
helion. Knowledge acquired by their foresight early 
disclosed to them opportunity and duty to deliber- 
ately arrange for making best possible use of any 
increase of knowledge or power consequent, or soon 
to be consequent, in any sphere upon the rare 
approaching position of the planets. 

Hosts of spirits, whose attainments and conditions 
may be indicated by such names as Swedenborg, 
Mesmer, Franklin, Channing, Fenelon, and many 
compeers and colaborers with such in studying and 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 71 

manipulating the finer forces of nature — both mate- 
rial and mental — hosts of such early in the present 
century — had formed themselves into a vast Con- 
gress whose aim, at least in part, if not mainly, was 
to devise ways and command means whereby more 
extensive return of spirits to this mortal plane might 
be rendered practicable. 

Spirits of that elevated grade hoped and expected, 
could and should they bring on quite constant and 
extensive intereommunings between spirits and their 
survivors in mortal, that great benefit thereby would 
come to mortals, and also and especially (mark that) 
especially to residents in the lower spirit spheres, as 
well as much pleasure and joy to themselves and other 
spirits in higher portions of the realms in which they 
and the wise, pure, and good have their habitations. 

One important question with them was: are mor- 
tals to much extent in mental states which will let 
them so regard and receive spirits as to profit by 
much intercourse with them, or so as to benefit the 
visiting or other spirits? Through the recent past 
centuries visits by bright and welcomed returners 
had been, in mortal view, only " angel visits, few 
and far between." Darker and troublesome ones 
brought many of the mortals through whose organ- 
isms they operated into disrepute, to severe maltreat- 
ments, and even execution as witches. Would it be 
so now? That was an important question with 
them. 

It devolved specially upon the spirit observers and 
students of the mental, emotional, and moral states 
of mortals to make response to such an inquiry. 



72 POST-MOETEM CONFESSIONS BY 

Fenelon, Charming, and other careful students of the 
mental states of mortals, after wide survey and care- 
ful scrutiny, reported that the population in some 
limited portions of Europe and of America appeared 
to be sufficiently enlightened, and free in habits of 
thought, to witness the advent and operations of 
visitors from spirit spheres without on the one hand 
bowing before them in abject, unquestioning atve, if 
the visitors in appearance should be bright and good, 
and also, on the other hand, without shrinking and 
turning in terror away from any who might be offen- 
sively boisterous or rude. 

Encouraged by such conclusion, the scientific and 
philanthropic hosts above resolved to do, and soon 
began to do, all in their power to attract the atten- 
tion of mortals to an extent and in such manner as 
would induce mortals to ascertain whether mj^steri- 
ous rappers, or wonder-workers by other processes, 
were, as they would claim to be, intelligent beings 
who had once been mortals. After many trials, in 
both Europe and America, in which success was often 
almost, yet not fully, reached, at last was reached at 
Hydesville, N. Y., March 31, 1848, and caused rejoic- 
ing throughout bright realms above. 

Reader, you ask for proof that the foregoing rec- 
ord is based on facts. Such proof cannot be given 
as you, if not familiar with spirit operations, probably 
ask for. But if declaratians made through mediums 
over and over again all along through the last two 
score of years, and in all the fairly cultured nations 
on our globe, will meet your demand, as it combined 
with works I have witnessed has met mine, you may 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 73 

find much strong proof of the above in spiritualistic 
literature. 

Admitting the truth of what precedes, it seems not 
unreasonable to ask admission of claims made by the 
spirits who have opened wide the doors and devised 
new facilities for return that the introduction and 
establishment of today's Spiritualism among us have 
been and are measurably under their supervision, at 
least so far as instruction and advice imply super- 
vision '. 

God. — While the Harvard investigation was in 
progress, one of the committee, sitting by my side, 
in low tone asked whether I supposed, if there be 
any reality in spirit action among us, that God will 
let this occasion pass without revealing it, when four 
such men as we are have come here to investigate it? 
1 did not — could not — make uttered response to 
such a question. Out of kindness to the asker I thus 
far have declined to state who of the four it was, and it 
still is my purpose not to tell till I have opportunity 
and inclination to remind that individual himself of 
his question in the life beyond the present. The 
bare existence of idea in the mind of one of those 
highly cultured professors that their elevation was so 
great that God would be specially observant of and 
helpful to them astounded me. I was dumb be- 
fore it. 

The benumbing fact gets statement here because 
it strongly indicates that possibly many even among 
the highly educated, the good and the devout, hold 
on to childhood's undigested idea that there come 



74 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

special helps or special hindrances to mortals directly 
from the Infinite One, which idea may be leading 
their minds wide away from actual facts and truths 
of great importance. 

What ? Does not God himself directly and per- 
sonally perform events called special providences and 
special conversions ? This writer thinks He does not 
directly. Such special providences occur, — yes, 
occur much more frequently and extensively than 
the mass of mortals suppose. But spirits or angels 
of some grade are viewed as being the immediate pre- 
videors — fore-seers, — and are the immediate operat- 
ors in all such cases, and in all outpourings of an 
enlightening, elevating, and holy spirit which lead 
to conversions, changes of heart, and newness of life. 
Finite intelligences are viewed as being the imme- 
diate operators in such works, they all however being 
moved thereto by God-derived wisdom, love, and 
power which inflow under the action of general law 
whenever and wherever finite minds and hearts are 
in states which attract and welcome them. 

That " whom we call God, and know no more," 
probably in most minds is viewed as a person, as an 
individual, limited being. So far as such a view is 
helpful to its holder, let it be retained. In most 
minds its lodgment, almost necessarily made there 
in childhood's days, may be so firm, and its action so 
familiar, that the utility of effort to extinguish it is 
very questionable. Yet, a broader view taken occa- 
sionally may be productive of good. 

An Infinite, that which has no boundaries, no 
limitations, no endings in any direction, cannot be 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 75 

all embraced in the ordinary significance of the word 
person, for that implies limitations above, below, 
around, — something in the shape of man. The 
Infinite is the common parent — both father and 
mother combined — of all other beings and things, 
and is in one sense ruler over all absolutely, — is the 
fountain from which all forces, physical, mental, and 
emotional flow, yet ever leaves to finites freedom and 
duty in and for applications of those forces. 

Various communicating spirits have informed us 
that they have seen Jesus of Nazareth, but no return- 
ing one, so far as my knowledge extends, has ever 
professed to have seen a personal God ; yet most of 
the elevated ones reverence an unseen Infinite ; give 
thanks to such, and invoke blessings from it. No 
information has reached me that any grade of finites 
ever see the Infinite in any other way than that in 
which mortals do, viz., through the onworkings of 
nature in the outer world and in their own minds 
and hearts. Nothing has been learned which con- 
flicts with an idea that in each higher sphere, as well 
as here below, the Infinite One leaves the dwellers 
therein to regulate all their affairs and doings by nat- 
ural exercise of such knowledge, wisdom, and power as 
they possess quite as fully as mortals are left to man- 
age theirs. All operations of spirits upon and among 
mortals hitherto and now seem to have been and to 
be their personal acts as freely and fully as are the 
ordinary plannings and acts of mortals in managing 
mundane affairs, be that freedom much or little in 
the reader's view. The Infinite Being may not be 
respecter of individual finite beings in any sphere. 



76 POST-MOETEM CONFESSIONS BY 

Reverently be it said, reverently this pen is now used 
to write, that the Infinite Ruler probably never by a 
specific act of his will directly either aids or hinders 
any finite in the course he or it pursues. 

Managers of Spiritualism's Ongoings. — Who 
is or are chief in management, if there be manage- 
ment, of the various operations which pertain closely 
to the present copious return of spirits, and to their 
operations upon and among mortals? In this author's 
view neither God, — the good One, — nor any single 
great Devil, — the evil One,— has had anything like 
what might be called special, personal, or unusual 
connection with either the oncoming or the on work- 
ings of today's marvels. Who, then, may have ? 

As far back as in the summer of 1853, when I had 
only little more than commenced investigating the 
doings of reputed spirits, Miss Rachael G. Ellis, then 
of about seventeen years, of only average mental 
capacities, and of such education only as she had 
obtained in the public schools of Boston, was made 
to write in my presence with great rapidity to and 
for me as follows : — 

" Gather in one heap the little facts which have come 
under your immediate observation. Trust not thy brother's 
eye, for it ofttimes deceives him. Let thy foundation be of 
stone, and angels will wave the glowing banner of victory 
on the pinnacle. 

" Philosophers, in the spirit world, are seeking new modes 
to manifest themselves more clearly and forcibly. There 
are ten modes. 

1st. Sounds. 
2nd. Movements. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 77 

3rd. Clairvoyance. 
4th. Spiritual discernment. 
5th. Hearing. 
"The 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th will be unfolded as the wheels 
of time roll on. Speak of the past and the present ; leave 
the future to be revealed by beings higher than you. 
" From your spirit friend, 

"Benjamin Franklin." 

That communication, unsought, unexpected, was 
flashed before me through the hand of a girl in her 
teens more than thirty-three years ago. The char- 
acter of him whose signature closed it forcibly drew 
my attention to its implied fact that invisible finite 
beings of high unfoldment, and workers when in 
mortal for humanity's good, had already brought 
their investigating powers into specific application 
for devising means whereby they, and if they, other 
decarnated ones might manifest themselves more 
clearly and forcibly to us in the mundane sphere. 

The contents of that brief letter took the matter 
of new facilities for recognized return by spirits out 
from operations by the Infinite One solely, and 
placed them partly and largely in charge of our 
finite predecessors into the vailed realms of the life 
beyond. Among the contents was a distinct call 
upon me to "gather in one heap the little facts which 
have come under my observation." Who, mindful 
of his duty to humanity, and to humanity's God, 
could do less than keep that call in mind, and heed 
its request? 

As specimens of the quality of some of the early 
communications, two will here be inserted. 



78 POST-MOKTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

On the afternoon of July 20, 1852, Miss Ada Hoyt, 
a miss of 17 or 18 years, at ray first sitting with any 
medium, was the apparent instrument through whom 
was rapped out for me, letter by letter, as follows : — 

"Dear Husband, — Mourn not; I am happy. The 
spirit world is full of joy and blessedness. I wish you may 
be partaker of its joys. God in his mercy is sending his 
angels to enlighten those who are in darkness, and remove 
the dark vail of superstition from the world. More at 
some future time. Abby." 

Late in the summer or early in the autumn of 
1853 was written for me through the same medium- 
istic hand used by Franklin the letter soon to fol- 
low. Obviously it was written by the common 
ancestor of nearly, if not quite, all the Putnams in 
America, since I had no ancestor bearing the name 
John till I get back to that one. Five generations 
intervened between him and me, and a lapse of more 
than two centuries. He was one who stood high 
among the early settlers at Salem, and doubtless was 
a hearty recipient of the religious views prevalent 
among the Puritans. Mention is made of this for 
the purpose of drawing attention to his present view 
of the action of Sectarianism : — 

"Dear Children of Earth, — I, the spirit of your old 
ancestor, come to hold sweet communion with you. I have 
watched the world, — its progress in knowledge. Now I see 
noble works. Mighty ships float on the gigantic ocean ; 
grand forests have been swept down by the hand of man. 
Beautiful now are the works of God. Onward has man 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 79 

advanced, but gradually has mist enveloped the once pure 
soul of mankind. He has strayed from the paths of truth, 
and left the road that would lead him to join the celestial 
heavens. Ay, I have seen oppression and sin cloud the 
Christian's mind. Ay, I have beheld the name of God, the 
divine giver of all good, borne on the wings of sectarianism, 
— thus has the world been made dark, and the spirit land di •- 
pelled by the thick atmosphere of gross sin. And now the 
redemption of the children of earth is proclaimed by angels 
from the bosom of the Lamb, and the morn of Judgment is 
near. God. arrayed in sandals of holiness and the crown of 
brightness, is gently lifting the weak children of earth up, 
by sending his messengers to fathom the cloudy places of 
earth, — to impart the dazzling truth of his mansions into 
the world. The prayers of angels have ascended to the 
Father, — their voices have echoed through the perfect halls 
above. And now, my child, I want you to know the happi- 
ness to feel the angels impressing your fevered brow, — to 
hear the melodious strains of exquisite harmony thrilling 
into your mind, — to tread the paths of truth with the right- 
eous, and think of the God that is ever shedding his love 
and mercy. This is from your old grandfather, an inhabitant 
of the celestial heavens, given through the medium of R. G. 
Ellis, by John Futmun, to my earthly child." 

The above communications to me by dwellers in 
spheres invisible are here given for the purpose of 
showing that one spirit eminent, world-wide eminent 
for scientific discovery, for sagacity, for benevolence, 
for philanthropy ; also, one bound to me by the pur- 
est affections of a wise and noble woman's heart; and 
a third calling me his child, whose character, as 
briefly portrayed by his son's pen, makes me view 
him as having been a wise, able, and saintly man 



80 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

when here, and who, because writing now from the 
celestial heavens, indicates the correctness of that 
view of him. Franklin speaks of spirit philosophers 
as at work in forwarding the return of spirits ; Abby 
speaks of angels as workers in the cause, — the old 
ancestor names angels from the bosom of the Lamb, 
and messengers of God. 

The advent, promptings, and teachings of those 
and many others like them, received four and three 
years prior to the battle in 1857, — these, much more 
than the ordinary doings of spirits and Spiritualists, 
were what gave me courage and strength to combat 
unflinchingly Harvard's ablest scientists. I did not 
then work blindly on. 

Methods, Motives, and Aims. — More than 
thirty years ago, and more times since than one can 
easily count, mortals have been informed by the de- 
carnated that the prescience or prevision of numer- 
ous highly unfolded spirits enabled them, much 
clearer than mortals, to foresee, not the coming 
merely, but the probable outworkings of the natural 
action of the rare perihelion in quickening and en- 
hancing the energies of dwellers in each and fevery 
sphere pertaining to our globe ; enabled them also 
to see that the forthcoming quickenings and augmen- 
tations of forces would naturally lead — were begin- 
ning to lead — spirits to seek discovery of and pow r er 
over forces, and to invention of instrumentalities 
in their sphere of life which would enable them, 
and other spirits of lower grades, to so visit and act 
among mortals as to be recognized and welcomed 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 81 

teachers and helpers, or at least communers with 
their successors on earth's material plane. Being 
recognized there* the spirits could make known their 
present views and many truths and experiences which 
they had first learned in spheres above. By thus 
acting they could remove many a vail of superstition 
or of ignorance which was hiding important truths 
from most minds in the mundane sphere. 

Hundreds, thousands, of spirits whose abilities and 
characters may be indicated by calling them colabor- 
ers with Franklin, Mesmer, Swedenborg, and others 
who had been keen-eyed students and skillful manip- 
ulators of nature's finer forces, material and mental, 
while mortals, and who upon leaving their material 
forms resumed and prosecuted their favorite studies 
in spheres above amid more favorable circumstances 
than exist here below. Such ones in the early part 
of this century obtained such knowledge of an oncom- 
ing augmentation of forces, physical and mental, and 
of the mental states of mortals in some localities, as 
to be trustful that could they but so arrest the atten- 
tion of mortals as to draw and hold the public mind 
to operations which they could perform, it would be 
possible to soon establish available wa}^s and means 
for free and extensive communings across the divid- 
ing line between the mundane and the spirit spheres, 
which ways, once opened, would ever henceforth re- 
main open and free. 

Kot Franklin's foregoing instructive, encouraging 
and onbeckoning epistle alone came to me and others 
from that noble spirit, but vastly many of similar 
import from him and his colaborers, by which mor- 



82 POST-MOBTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

tals were informed that there had been instituted a 
vast spirit congress by, and consisting of, wise and 
good supernals whose purpose is supervision and 
regulation of operations, processes and forces whereby 
mortals, and spirits, too, may be instructed and ben- 
efited by the advent and action of a copious, recog- 
nized advent of spirits into the mundane sphere. 

That congress has appointed very many commit- 
tees to look into, report, or act upon specific subjects 
and matters of various kinds. The congress, as an 
whole, has now continuously through half a century 
or more been exercising general supervision over the 
doings of the vast hosts of returning ones, and, as far 
as possible, so shaping the onworkings as eventually 
to make results as beneficent as possible to the vast 
body of humanity, — not to you nor to me, not to 
your sect nor to mine, — not to those of your grade nor 
those of mine,— not to mortals alone, nor to spirits 
alone, — not to the saints alone, nor to the sinners 
alone, — but to all on earth, all in the hells, all in the 
heavens which pertain to our globe. 

What mortal can deem himself competent to sit in 
judgment upon the wisdom of the methods and per- 
missions of sucb supervisors of such a work ? 

Many people perhaps, as this writer at the outset 
did, surmise and inwardly argue that, if the work be 
of God and under His special management, — if it be 
really for good more than evil, — none but good ones 
should be allowed to come back; few, if any, but 
wise and good mortals should be visited and in 
structed, and certainly none but pure and good mor- 



OFFICERS OF HAEVAED COLLEGE. 83 

tals ought to be used as instruments through whom 
instruction would be put before mortals. 

Far, far indeed, are vast hosts of truth-loving, 
truth-seeking mortals led to wander away from 
momentous truths and facts by errors and igno- 
rance existing in their own minds ! 

The managers of spirit return are throwing wide 
the doors so that any spirit who desires and is able 
to may make a journey or a plunge back. Why do 
they so ? Because their wisdom and spirit closely 
resemble his who, of old, " came not to call the right- 
eous but sinners to repentance." What ? Do you 
mean that a return by rude, or boisterous, or bad 
spirits ever tends to lead them or anybody to repent- 
ance and reformation? Yes, I do mean just that. 

For Whose Good ? — Few readers, not fairly well 
acquainted with a class of important facts which 
Spiritualism is bringing to the knowledge of those 
who are getting somewhat extensively versed in its 
revealments, can bring their minds into states which 
let them tolerate with deserved complacency either 
the multiplicity of returning spirits who are ignorant 
or rude, or the vastness of the number of Indians, 
especially young and chatty squaws, who act as con- 
trollers. Reasons exist — good and strong — why In- 
dian workers are allowed to be so numerous. Our 
red brethren being readers of nature's bible, un- 
swathed by creeds, nature-taught worshipers of the 
Great Spirit — our God as well as theirs — and 
their race in long past ages as well as now, com- 
muners with departed ancestry, can, and as much 



84 POST-MOKTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

experience shows do, control our mediumistic ones 
with more ease and facility — less exhaustingly both 
to themselves and to the mediums — than can but 
very few of the white race. Also, most Indian con- 
trols have at all times good abilities to replenish 
waste of energies in both mediums and other mortals, 
and when an exhausting seance ends, they generally 
restore the energies. They, in the very important 
line of preserving undiminished the health and vital 
forces of mediums, much surpass the whites. The 
young squaws generally are mainly but employes of 
wise and good spirits. The wisdom would be very 
faulty indeed which set aside the Indians as workers 
in the introduction of our Spiritualism. Wreckage 
of the physical systems of mediums if controlled by 
the whites exclusively, and to such extent as they 
now are, would be vastly more extensive than it is 
while Indians act much as substitutes and much as 
replenishes of forces which most whites sadly ex- 
haust when they control. 

Perhaps you say, or least think, that the great 
quantity of ignorant, profane, repulsive spirits of our 
white race who come back do more to injure mortals 
than the better spirits who return can overbalance by 
all the good they can do. You may honestly believe so. 
Once I might have so believed; but now I know that 
many spirits whom we look upon as bad, who in our 
view really are so, are extensively encouraged and 
helped to return by very good spirits who, resorting 
to that process, thus obtain position or means by 
which they hope and expect to lead the returning 
low ones to commence efforts to become better. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 85 

Did not the needful limits of this work restrain, it 
would be easy to fill very many pages with details 
of operations which good spirits have resorted to 
whereby they sought, and often had great success, in 
giving help to benighted spirits whom they could 
instruct most easily, if not solely, by getting them 
held in some mortal form. 

Though our judgments as to what is best must 
ordinarily be based upon what we know, or think we 
know, it is wise to remember that dwellers in the 
spheres above are in positions to see the possible 
benefits and actual results of returns into the mun- 
dane much more clearly than we can. My confer- 
ences with spirits duiing the last thirty-four years, 
and through more than two hundred different medi- 
ums, have scarcely ever brought to my ears what 
would conflict with statement that it gives all volun- 
tary returners pleasure, and does all of them good to 
return, and also that some good in either one realm 
or the other invariably results from the return of 
each and eveiy one, however high or however low, 
who recommunes with mortals. 

Readers who give credence to the preceding state- 
ments may find in them reasons why, when their own 
loved ones are removed from this plane of life, it may 
be kind — very kind — to give those who, though 
departed from mortal visiGn, are not beyond the 
range of mortals' sympathy, — kind to give such ones 
opportunity for recommunings through those whose 
material organisms nature has made usable by spirits. 
Yes, much observation and experience induce record 
here of a strongly-felt desire that the bereaved shall, 



86 POST-MORTEM CONFESSION'S BY 

for the great pleasure and benefit of those for whom 
they mourn, procure for such ones opportunity to re- 
commune with themselves, whatever may be the 
mental or emotional cost of such kindness. 

It is fact that my own recently-departed kindred, 
and also most of those others at whose funerals I 
have recently officiated, soon have sought, and suc- 
ceeded in getting into, converse with me (through 
mediums), and have expressed very much pleas- 
ure at being welcomed by some survivor, and ex- 
pressed also deep grief that most of their kindred 
are so shut up that even entrance into their affec- 
tional spheres is scarcely possible, and if gained gives 
no cheer. Though out of their mortal forms, they 
may be near you, longing to have you recognize their 
presence. 

If much experience in meeting and conversing 
kindly with very many henighted spirits when they 
have entered a mortal medium's form can give knowl- 
edge, then I know that many while in mortal build 
for themselves prisons, — prisons which are natural 
and necessary outgrowths from shortcomings or bad 
doings in this mortal sphere, — nature-grown prisons 
in the beyond, which will claim occupancy there by 
those from whose lives here they were outgrowths. 
Occupants of such may, and often do, obtain by 
means of a return to this earth sphere helpful, de- 
sired, and not elsewhere so easily obtained instruc- 
tions and cheer, whereby they get knowledge and 
courage which induce them to gain views and com- 
mence labors that will soon open their prison doors 
and set them free to commence ascent towards higher 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 87 

and more cheerful abodes. There is joy in heaven 
over each such liberation. 

Probably it has never been extensively suspected 
— surely has not extensively been taught in this 
community — that vast numbers when getting release 
from their mortal robes could not, under the action 
of nature's laws of spirit gravitation, or perhaps it is 
better to say, under nature's restrictive psychological 
action, rise into purer auras — a purer realm — but 
from necessity must be held down near to earth's 
surface. We are told — extensively told — that very 
many departed ones for a long time, some for many 
years and even centuries do, must hang about — are 
tied to — their old mundane homes, haunts, rela- 
tives, friends, cronies. Such residents, invisible but 
necessarily dwellers among us, are said to be, and 
probably are, quite as numerous around us and 
among us as mortals are, and such ones probably are 
viewed by the supervisors of today's spiritualistic 
operations to be now the class to receive the most 
special attention, because their enlightenment, spirit- 
ualization, and consequent elevation and release 
from any but optional stoppings here with us, while 
it will outwork blessings to them will, yea, must, tend 
very extensively to diminish the causes of both 
physical diseases and swayings to commissions of 
crimes among and by mortals. The departed ones 
who are chained here, living upon us, sapping our 
vitality, and prompting many to commit crimes, are 
said to be as numerous as, and in old cities more 
numerous than, the mortals in this or any other city 
or town. Plelp which shall bring enlightenment, 



88 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

reformation, elevation to such ones must be help to 
us also, — great help. High supernal wisdom and 
benevolence may not only permit but desire very 
abundant workings of rude and low spirits through 
our mediums, since thereby such may gain for them- 
selves and incite their comrades to gain great helps 
towards improvement in their spiritual states. 

Much experience induces me to say to any who 
feel inclined to decry Spiritualism because of the 
seemingly humble grade of both many mediums and 
many spirits who operate through them that decla- 
rations over and over again by higher grades of 
spirits affirm that getting benighted spirits into 
mediums is among the most expeditious and efficient 
processes by which they are able to get the earth- 
bound ones conscious of their ability to gain release 
from their states of unrest and discontent, and to 
incite in them desires, and arouse them to commence 
efforts, to win better abodes, and happier states of 
mind and heart. 

Nearly all extensive and beneficent reformers 
known in our world's history at the outset have had 
mainly lowly ones, persons of no repute, as their 
chief — their most persistent and most reliable — 
followers. They began with the low, and worked 
upwards, — began not with rulers and pharisees, not 
with professors in colleges, not with leaders in 
society. 

The Great Infinite Fountain of all force which 
furnishes rain to the just and to the unjust alike, if 
equally impartial in all its bestowments, is the same 
in action upon the operations pertaining to spirit 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 89. 

return as to man's ordinary plannings and doings, to 
man's methods and instrumentalities for cros«?ngs 
and re-crossings of broad oceans, — no more, no less. 
From Him all finites in all realms get their " power 
to will and to do," get also His call upon them in all 
realms to severally work for good ends as best they 
can, with such powers as He has bestowed and sus- 
tains. Spirits of whatever grade are no more and no 
less objects of His love, care, and blessings than 
mortals of every grade. 

The lessons of history teach that less confidence 
could safely be placed in the wisdom which guides 
the operations pertaining to this day's Spiritualism, 
if few others than very good spirits — few except 
high and holy ones — came, and when come com- 
muned only or even mainly with the most eminent, 
the most devout, the most holy mortals, than can 
now rationally be placed in the high, heavenly wis- 
dom of its supervisors whose aim apparently and 
doubtless is to early call those grades of beings to 
repentance, to reformation, to aspirations heaven- 
ward, whose repentance and upward-seekings would 
excite more joy in heaven than heaven would derive 
from only making relatively good spirits and mortals 
a little better. Let no doubt that Spiritualism is of 
God spring up within you because its first extensive 
operations are much among His quite lowly, way- 
ward, and erring children. It is the sick who most 
need the physician. 

First Needs. — Neither many mortals in Chris- 
tendom nor many spirits therefrom have been trained 



90 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

to apprehend that return from beyond a bourn which 
the decarnated had passed was possible. It may not 
be among the suppositions of most readers that there 
would be about as much labor needed to spread and 
establish general belief among spirits graduated from 
Protestant Christendom that they could return as to 
gain recognition of its possibility on our mundane 
side. They had carried with them beliefs so preva- 
lent among mortals" as to have nearly the sway of 
positive knowledge that none could return. Belief 
of its possibility was almost as rare and as difficult to 
make common among spirits as among us. 

How could such unbelief and incredulity be over- 
come? Scarcely otherwise than by actual returns 
which would be reported, commented upon, discussed, 
denied and affirmed among spirits just as they are 
and have been among us. Each new returner is a 
discoverer, whatever his grade or quality, who, sub- 
sequently mingling with his associates, becomes an 
attester to the fact that return to and recommuning 
with mortals is possible, desirable, and may be profit- 
able. Supervisors of the doings may say let any and 
all who can go back and recommune with their for- 
mer kindred or cronies ; the more who do that the 
wider and faster will desired results be reached ; none 
can return without benefit to somebody. Good will 
result from giving extention of knowledge in any 
spheres that such recommunings are possible, and 
are to become very extensive and helpful to dwellers 
in distinct and heretofore practically severed realms. 
Bear in mind, reader, that we who may be deeming 
ourselves competent to criticise wisely and justly the 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 91 

workings of Spiritualism may possibly fall far short 
of grasping the full breadth of its scope, and the 
comprehensiveness of the aims of its chief managers. 

Sad Conditions. — In this dawning of an era of 
unprecedented amount of spirit return, many spirits, 
high, low, and intermediate in grades of intelligence 
and spirituality, have been revealing rather privately 
than very openly the existence of saddening facts 
not generally supposed to exist. In this treatise, 
though short, such facts, even at the expense of essen- 
tial repetition, will have farther attention. 

A great number, upon going out from mortal 
form, must, and others may, long remain in and close 
about their earthly material homes and haunts ; will 
cling to their old workshops, places of business, loung- 
ing or loafing resorts, attaching themselves to, cling- 
ing to, their surviving relatives, friends, cronies, 
affinities in mortal, feed upon them, sap their vital- 
ity, engender or increase in them debilities and dis- 
eases, and also sway many to harmful indulgences, 
and excesses in eating, drinking, and other sensual 
gratifications. 

Among them will be some — and, perhaps, not a 
few — who to gratify the special evil propensities 
they had while here, and carried with them into the 
hereafter, prompt and incite the special mortals with 
whom they blend to commission of thefts, robberies, 
swindlings, or even murders. Results like those are 
represented to be so extensive as almost to force 
belief that departed ones are the essential producers 
of nearly half of the diseases and half of the crimes 



92 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

which afflict society in this city of Boston, or any 
other, or in any town, are either engendered or inten- 
sified by decarnated familiar spirits ; that is, spirits 
pertaining to, and being part of, the family. 

Many such spirits, from necessity growing out of 
the bad quality of their own past lives, some from 
inherent, and it may be innocent, feebleness, also 
others from kind, but mostly very unwise and harm- 
ful, attachment to their mortal kindred, cronies, or 
friends, — such decarnated ones in vast numbers 
actually abide in our mortal midst. 

An enlightenment of those benighted, earth-bound, 
fellow-immortals, and an engendering in them of 
aspirations for ascent into higher spheres, are repre- 
sented as being at present prominent among even 
the leading aims of the supervisors of our modern 
spiritualistic operations. 

Spirits whose criminalities and perversions of their 
powers while in mortal chain them to the lowest 
plane of spirit habitation are represented as ever 
being in states of extreme unrest and discontent, 
each suffering from the burnings of a hell within self 
builded there and stored with fuel by self. Others 
remain low because of their mundane, mental, or 
other weaknesses, which debarred from growth of 
spirit to extent which called for or could enjoy purer 
auras than those amid which mortals live. But 
unconsciously to themselves, and unknown by mor- 
tals, such ones often and extensively are great sap- 
pers of the vital forces and energies of those to whom 
they cling, or with whom they continue to abide. 

Another class hover much quite near to kindred 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 93 

mortals, strongly drawn there by cords of sympathy, 
and by desire to assuage the griefs of survivors 
mourning over their bereavement. Many linger long 
near their relatives in mortal, hoping by their near 
presence and their pity to do what in but few cases 
can be done, — that is, end the sorrows of those who 
have no faith nor even conjecture that their seem- 
ingly lost ones are or can be near to and actors upon 
survivors here. Vastly numerous are they who 
could be more extensive recipients of joy in the 
realms beyond than they are, or can be. so long as 
held near to earth by the griefs and spiritual blind- 
ness of their kindred survivors. 

Various Locations. — The more elevated in re- 
finement and spirituality any spirit is the more offen- 
sive to it are our mundane atmosphere and the 
emanations which go forth from mortals. Those who 
from lack of goodness must have continuous abode 
in our midst of course can be with, commune with, 
and act upon us with much less discomfort, and for 
longer time, than can residents in the higher spheres 
to whom our atmosphere is oppressive. Therefore, 
since all grades, under nature's laws, have equal 
freedom to come, it should create no surprise, but be 
viewed as almost necessary, that when the gates 
between the spheres obtained, in our day, a more 
extended opening than ever before that a great 
majority of our earlier visitors should be our nearest 
neighbors, and those nearest to us in elevation on 
the planes of culture and refinement. 

Where natural law has free action, the more inno- 



94 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

cent, pure, loving, heavenly any departing soul is 
the more remote from this gross, material earth will 
be the stratum of spirit aura to which the action of 
spirit gravitation will bear it up. But some varia- 
tions of action of that law may be made limitedly in 
extent, and for limited time, by the spirit's own will. 
Should one desire to be much with associates some- 
what less in spirituality than him or herself, that 
may be. Though a spirit may go far below, and 
remain long somewhat below, its own natural posi- 
tion, it cannot without some special permission and 
special aid go above that stratum of spirit auras to 
which nature's laws would assign it. Consequently 
departing ones who are weighted with the grossness 
which pertains to past weakening indulgences, past 
sensualities, past abuses of any powers, to criminal 
desires and purposes, to uncleannesses physical, men- 
tal, emotional, will by such be chained close to the 
surface of the solid earth, to the lower sphere of 
spirit life, not much above their old homes, haunts, 
associates while they were in mortal. Such are this 
writer's views, as gained by much converse with 
communicating spirits. 

Mediumship. — A vast majority of mortals need 
some intermediate whereby to get into converse with 
spirits. Enquiry is often made why our departed 
kindred, if wishing and able to confer with us, fail 
to come directly to their relatives and confer in their 
old homes. Such question is natural. Answer to it 
is easy. 

Mediumship, or susceptibility of being passed 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 95' 

through, or operated through by a spirit, is a quality 
of the mortal body much more than of the mind, or 
than of the character, either moral or religious. Spirit 
Benjamin Franklin has said that it "depends upon the 
qualities and combinations of the elements in the orig- 
inal structure of the brain." It is a gift, having no 
inseparable connection with the mental capabilities 
and propensities. Like special inborn capabilities 
for music, poetry, or any of the fine arts, this is 
inborn, not producible by culture alone or mainly, 
though culture may increase its pliancy. Lack of 
such susceptibility in a family or household is one 
reason or cause Avhy departed ones do not and can- 
not confer there. Another reason may be that they 
get no invitation and cannot perceive any latent de- 
sire for them to operate there, and may feel that they 
might not be welcomed there. Unbelief stops the 
performance of not " mighty works " only, but also 
of many gentle and good ones. 

Some beliefs by the author which are outgrowths 
from personal observations of and reflections upon 
both the doings and sayings of spirits are quite dif- 
ferent from w T hat his earlier mental training would 
have engendered. Prior to the age of fifty he would 
have said that good angel visitants coming into our 
sphere would make their perceptible ingress, put 
forth their teachings, accomplish their work through 
none other than quite saintly mortals, that they would 
give " a wide berth " to vast numbers in the grades 
of spirituality through whom spirits, reputed good, 
are now working among us. What do we mortals 
care for the moral character or mental culture of a 



96 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

telegraph operator through whom we send our mes- 
sages to distant friends compared with confidence 
that he and his apparatus are competent to meet our 
special needs at the time? 

Yet while prolonged and extensive observation 
have led to conclusion that plastic mediumship in the 
mortal is the foremost desire of the spirit wishing to 
communicate, and will be availed of in an emergency, 
though the medium be far below himself in knowl- 
edge and purity, still the communicator is obviously 
more at ease and enjoys work more with a medium 
who is nearer to himself in mental abilities and un- 
foldment* and most with a medium who is nearest to 
himself in moral and spiritual states. Though good 
and exalted spirits come much to low mortals and 
low spirits to enlighten and help such, their un- 
curbed sympathies draw them closer to the pure and 
good. Be good yourself, and then good spirits, even 
though never seen, will be your keepers. Be bad 
yourself, and bad spirits will dwell and bask in your 
emanations. 

How Commune? — Should, perchance, any read- 
ers of these pages who have never sat with a medium 
be prompted to seek converse through such with de- 
parted relatives, friends, or other spirits, advice is 
given them to do it, as far as possible, in a calm and 
unexpectant state of mind, free from the slightest 
dread, and from any suspicion of fraud, trickery, or 
imposition. 

Enquiry has brought forth statements from high 
and intelligent spirits that best, or even fairly good, 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 97 

results can rarely be obtained unless the electric or 
magnetic emanations from the band of spirits having 
care of the medium, from the medium him or herself, 
also from the spirit band attendant upon the sitter, 
and from the sitter him or herself blend in harmony, 
or least intermingle without conflict or commotion. 
Suspicions of fraud or trickery, or great restlessness 
in the sitters, or intense desire to commune with 
some particular individual spirit, will retard, perhaps 
even render impossible, such a blending of the need- 
ful magnetic auras for either a desired or for a desir- 
ing spirit to get control, or to manifest clearly in 
any way, especially if it be a spirit not accustomed to 
speak nor transmit through a medium. 

In many cases some other spirit, probably the 
medium's usual control, and that control quite likely 
an Indian spirit, may begin to talk, and may run on 
and on to the great annoyance of yourself, the sitter. 
But keep calm. That spirit may be, and probably is, 
running on thus for the very purpose of getting har- 
mony, getting such blending of the magnetic auras 
as is requisite for good results, which blending of 
auras will be retarded and perhaps made impossible 
by restlessness in your mind by your- desire for 
that one to stop, together with your desire that a 
particular spirit whom you know and wish to com- 
*mune with would begin to operate. Keep calm; 
keep down any rising strong wish for some particular 
thing ; sit without any wish whatsoever, if you can, 
and without any impatience or restlessness, else you 
will lessen your chances for getting the most desir- 
able success. 



98 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

This may seem strange advice, but it is outgrowth 
from very much experience as a sitter with mediums. 

Business. — Financial matters pertain much more 
to this life than the next, and the more wise and spirit- 
ually minded ones in the spheres above prefer to have 
us conduct such matters by careful use of our mun- 
dane judgments solely. Yet they do not always 
deem it wise to pursue a v course which would crush 
the motive which very extensively prompts mortals 
to seek communings with and help from spirits. The 
well advanced spirits are more prone and ready to 
advise positively embarrassed mortals, if they see a 
way how to extricate such from existing condi- 
tions, than to indicate how anyone may become very 
rich. Such classes of spirits are more inclined than 
most mortals are to see truth in the Scripture decla- 
ration that " money is the root of all evil," and obvi- 
ously in their view great riches are not desirable. 

Many spirits, however, who when here had keen 
business capacities, and loved business pursuits, re- 
tain those loves, and find pleasure in giving advice 
through mediums upon business schemes and projects. 

Conclusions drawn from extensive observation and 
some experience are that it is rarely wise to put very 
confiding trust in the wisdom of unknown spirit 
advisers and prophets upon business matters. If ex- 
perts and sharpers in that line, they may allure you to 
investments or course of action to your detriment, 
designing thereby to enrich some mortal who is their 
pet. Unprincipled sharpers here may continue such 
there for a time, — perhaps long time. I am not in 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 99 

mood to dissuade persons whose only purpose in ever 
consulting with mediums is to be informed how they 
can make some money to keep away from them 
entirely. Yet am in mood to advise such as at times 
resort to mediums from less worldly motives to ever 
leave it optional with the spirit in control whether 
to touch upon financial matters or not. Some expe- 
rience makes me deem it occasionally prudent to put 
confidence in and comply with advice unsolicited, 
and yet proffered through a medium by some known 
friend resident in the world unseen. 

The great aim of our Spiritualism's high overseers 
— which should be the high aim of Spiritualists — is 
to have the teachings of returning spirits well 
adapted in the main to outwork redemption and 
preservation from spiritual poverty. Spiritual inter- 
ests may be and are by many persons promoted by 
wise, generous, just endeavors to earn what is need- 
ful for comfortable sustenance of themselves and 
those dependent upon them, but the danger is great 
that efforts to get that by shirking labor, or by dis- 
honesty, fraud, or cramping selfishness will be detri- 
mental to one's highest interests. 

Healing by Spirits. — As healers of man's diseases 
vast many spirits are in advance of mortal practition- 
ers. When this is said no implied disparagement of the 
latter class is intended. They may be doing as well 
as beings whose vision cannot penetrate matter are 
capable of doing, and be deserving of respect and 
commendation for very much of their work. It is no 
disparagement of the bat to say that he has not the 



100 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

vision of the eagle. It is fact beyond question that 
clairvoyance, whether independent of matter, as with 
a spirit, or out through matter, as with the mundane 
clear seer, it is fact that such faculty enables its pos- 
sessor to obtain more accurate and extensive knowl- 
edge of an invalid's internal organs and their 
conditions than can be obtained by a mortal's usual 
capacities for and processes of diagnosis. It has 
become very apparent that in many cases spirit 
physicians can and do apply forces invisible and 
impalpable by mortal senses which result in prompt 
and marvelous cures. But not all spirit healers are 
equal in powers and skill. They need to be tested. 

Without undervaluing the insight of keen mortal 
diagnosers of disease, or their skill at divining and 
administering appropriate remedies, it may be said 
that thousands upon thousands who, through the 
long past, were eminently skillful physicians while 
curbed in mortal forms, and therefore relatively 
blind, may now with their spirit vision distinctly see 
into and through arteries, veins, muscles, and the 
channels through which life's fluids flow in a mortal 
form, and see the conditions of those fluids, and 
therefore may be much keener diagnosers and more 
scientific prescribers than they were while mortals, 
or than any mortals can be. Admit, as seems to 
have been proved, that many such ones are now 
acting extensively among us, and it becomes obvious 
that many cures may come, are believed to have come, 
where mundane science is and was completely non- 
plussed. 

Admitting that such ones act here among mortals, 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 101 

requires admission also that many spirits who are 
less competent may try their hand at healing though 
they be not more, and may be less, competent to such 
operations than very many mortal physicians. There- 
fore while claiming that the spirit world actually 
furnishes us with abler physicians than mortal sagac- 
ity and mundane science can possibly furnish, no 
claim is made that all, nor that the larger part of, 
spirit healers are better doctors than are very many 
graduates from our medical schools. 

Consolation. — As the assuager of griefs in sea- 
sons of bereavement, Spiritualism comes in her bright- 
est robes, her most benignant smiles, and sustaining 
power. Few can estimate at its intrinsic worth the 
inherent brightness of her radiations in bereave- 
ment's nights excepting those who have passed such 
nights both without and with her soothing aid. 

A long life usually calls one to part with percepti- 
ble presence of several relatives and friends, to mourn 
their removal into some realm vailed from mortal 
vision, but where and what that realm is mystery 
has long and widely kept wrapped up within her 
own dark robes. Loved brothers, sisters, wives went 
from the homes of the author, and he ministered at 
the funerals of many parishioners while living under 
the darkening vail thrown upon him in his youth by 
the occasional saying of his elders, that — 

" Dying is nothing ; but 't is this we fear, — 

To be we know not what, we know not where." 

Receiving that as true, and holding on to it as true 
till in his fiftieth year, suddenly then the first seen 



102 rOST-MOKTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

ray of Spiritualism's dawning light hinted that we 
may know, if we will seek for it, something about 
the " what and where " of our departed ones, and 
what and where we ourselves shall be when released 
from the bonds which tie us here ; may learn that 
the departed from our vision can, at their option, be 
near to us, may be prompters of many of our doings, 
witnesses of our conditions, sympathisers with us in 
both our joys and our sorrows, and will be glad wel- 
comers of ourselves into the life beyond when the 
fitting time for our release from the mortal shall waft 
us into the homes of our ascended kindred. 

Since that light came gloom has vanished from the 
chamber of death. One feels, or on some occasions 
may feel, with the prophet of old, that " the day of 
death is better than the day of one's birth "; feel 
that it is birth into a fairer and better world ; that it 
is entrance into a higher school-room than the mun- 
dane, in which will be prosecuted studies by which 
to gain ascent from sphere to sphere, and to unfold 
the soul, and be ever and ever drawing that into 
closer harmony with the glorious Infinite One who 
gave it being. And yet it may all the while be learn- 
ing some lessons needful for its progress and disci- 
pline by frequent attendance upon, sympathy with, 
and help to the kindred and friends still in mortal 
enrobement. 

Amid the light of Spiritualism, experience in one 
case surely has shown that darkness is not usually 
an appropriate robe of the angel of death ; he comes 
to bear a soul into other habitation for that soul's 
good, sooner or later. The bereaved and the minis- 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 103 

ter of consolation may bid the departing spirit joy 
over its release, and send forth supplications to the 
Highest and His ministering angels and spirits, to 
bestow upon this new comer to abodes above all 
needful and helpful love and care. If it be a dark- 
ened soul, to give it lights and aids to enlightenment 
and reformation ; if a weak one, to give it strength ; 
a timid one, to give it courage ; if good and joyous, 
to increase its joy and blessedness. Each has gone 
to reap there as here from what it has sown ; yet 
may renew its sowings there, and by using improved 
seed, if necessary, grow the fruits of righteousness 
and love. 

Departed ones are as much pleased and benefited 
by getting recognized and being addressed by their 
mourning survivors as the survivors can be by 
getting messages from those who have gone beyond 
the reach of the physical senses. Give your de- 
parted opportunity to speak with you once more, 
because of its pleasure and benefit to them. 

Religious Aspects. — As now extensively viewed 
by the public, Spiritualism's present and prospective 
action upon the community's religious views and 
upon morality may be swaying some minds to seek 
more intimate acquaintance with it, and many more 
to keep aloof from it. Its earlier operations, as 
widely characterized by pulpit, press, and a large 
portion of the public, were not such as would give it 
winning aspects ; neither would a considerable por- 
tion of its direct teachings and open operations. 
Seemingly to manj' other minds as well as the writ 



104 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

er's, its earlier workings to much extent, as described 
and as supposed correctly, were repulsive rather than 
winning. But as soon as he came into direct and 
close contact with it, he met evidences of precious 
wine beneath the much froth and scum which agita- 
tion was bringing into view on the surface of the 
broad sea of humanity, and also saw strong indica- 
tions that, when clarification shall have well out- 
wrought its prospective action, results will be glad- 
dening to humanity's heart. 

A first question with many people pertaining to 
Modern Spiritualism is : Are our departed kindred 
and predecessors actually concerned in producing it? 
Is it other than a child either of bewildered imagina- 
tion or of diabolism ? That is a simple question of 
fact to be determined by evidence. Surely it is now 
very extensively admitted in all grades of mental 
unfoldment that spirits of very varied grades of char- 
acter do return in vast and increasing numbers. That 
question as to the fact has in many millions of minds 
been settled affirmatively. 

Whether one likes the prospective action of an 
alleged fact or not, if. it be proved to have positive 
existence, then whatever may be its prospective bear- 
ings upon one's existing opinions and beliefs, every 
sound and rational mind must concede the fact itself. 
If its prospective action be hostile to items in one's 
creed, that does not, cannot, disprove the fact's ex- 
istence, nor should it be allowed to obstruct its natu- 
ral and legitimate action in any direction. If the 
fact be, as this writer sees, the one of spirit return to 
be nature s timely evolvernent, and therefore its source 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 105 

of emanation Divine, then all of its legitimate out- 
workings must be in harmony with the Divine Will. 
Should it shatter creeds, it must be because the 
Divine Will shatters them for their holders' good. 

The probability obviously seems strong that teach- 
ings by many who have left mortal forms, and had 
extended experiences in bright spheres above, may 
gradually, in the coming years, work very marked 
changes in many now-prevalent creeds and views 
called Christian. The personal experiences of such 
teachers surely have commanding claims to be viewed 
as clearly indicative of the actual relative action of 
their mental creeds to the action of their works while 
in mortal in making them happy and joyous, or the 
reverse in the realms they now inhabit. 

Thus far this author has found both the good and 
the less good departed ones stating that they severally 
are reaping from what they sowed here by the deeds 
of the lives they lived, and the motives which 
prompted their actions, irrespective of their mental 
creeds, or reliance upon the merits of any other being 
further than as the merits of one or many gave them 
light and aid as they moved along life's pathways- 

The drift of Spiritualism obviously is towards 
great modification and simplification of many creeds; 
towards demolition of sectarianism; towards an on- 
bringing of a natural and cosmopolitan religion. Is 
it on that account to be dreaded, shunned, maligned? 
Let each make answer for self. 

If one will find and read the work entitled Spirit 
Livocaticns, published by Colby & Rich several years 
ago, therein will be found invocations to one and the 



106 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

same Infinite Father, all coming through the lips of 
Mrs. Conant, by one hundred different spirits, repre- 
sentative not only of most of the Christian sects but 
of numerous others than Christians, varying by thou- 
sands of years in the times of their lives in mortal, 
thus showing that finites "do not worship different 
gods, but the same God differently," as one of them 
has said. 

My good old Puritan ancestor, John Putnam (see 
p. 78), from the celestial heavens, charges sectarian- 
ism with making our world dark and sinful. His son 
John, my uncle, five generations back, who fought 
the Devil most valiently in the days and amid the 
scenes of Salem Witchcraft, in defence of his puri- 
tanic creed, ere I had been one year a student of 
Spiritualism, and a cheerful host of returning spirits, 
when asked by me which among the prevalent creeds 
in Christendom he now deemed nearest to abso- 
lute truth, answered: "The spiritual sense of Swed- 
enborg." Also, he made the broad, comprehensive, 
and illumining statement: "All evil must meet its 
utmost expansion, and then, like a bubble, — burst." 
My own saintly mother, who received and cherished 
in her outer intellect, and kindly and faithfully taught 
to me the old creed which had come to her through 
four generations unchanged, once told me that before 
my birth she consecrated me devoutly to the service 
of the Lord. This was wrung from her when my 
dissent from that old creed and my leaning towards 
liberalism anguished her soul. At the age of ninety- 
two, seventeen years ago, she left her form, and 
shortly after that, through mediumistic lips, said: 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 107 

" My son, why did you not explain to me your Spirit- 
ualism while I was with you ? " and promptly an- 
swered her own question, saying: "I know why. 
You did not wish to disturb my mind in my old age," 
— which was true. On the very day of penning 
this (Oct. 12, 1886), she and her good husband, my 
father, unitedly blessed me, and thanked the Heav- 
enly Father that I had been true to the marvelous 
light of this age. 

Great reluctance to admit a fact whose existence, 
if admitted, must come in direct conflict with and 
may undermine some of one's prior and existing be- 
liefs pertaining to important, even to highest, inter- 
ests is natural, and up to a certain point does good 
service by holding the mind on a steady course amid 
the baffling winds of the world's many varied asser- 
tions and doctrines. Yet absolute refusal to admit 
not alone the possibility but also the probability of 
facts when it becomes clearly apparent that they are 
broadly alleged to be occurring world-wide, and are 
by their own potency forcing acceptance of their 
verity by multitudes in all grades of society, can 
hardly be consistent with duty obviously resting 
upon any clear brain conjoined with a sound heart. 

Up to early manhood a Trinitarian, and then for 
twenty-five years an adult Unitarian, prior to ac- 
quaintance with Spiritualism, no change of the creed 
which this author then had was called for by Spirit- 
ualism ; yet extensive and beautiful additions to its 
height and breadth were. These have been made, 
and they contribute largely to the dimensions and 
cheerfulness of faith's apartments in the brain. 



108 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

Liberal Christians generally may receive Spiritu- 
alism in its fullness and retain all there is in their 
existing creeds, so far as the writer comprehends 
those creeds. Whether those belonging to any of the 
sects which call themselves either Orthodox or Evan- 
gelical can without considerable modification or sup- 
pression of creed accept the general drift of reveal- 
ments by the most enlightened grades of spirits who 
are becoming our teachers will here be left for them 
severally to determine. No creed, however, can ex- 
empt one from obligation to admit that spirits are 
returning in vast numbers when the copious return 
is perceived clearly and confessedly by the perceptive 
faculties of millions, and our ablest scientists remain 
incompetent to prove the broad world's sight, hear- 
ing, and touch most enormously and incredibly de- 
luding. 

In humble trust submit your creeds to the out- 
workings of God's will through the action of His 
natural forces upon them, whether to yourself they 
seem thereby likely to be confirmed and hardened, 
or to suffer disintegration. Let His will be done, and 
humanity's welfare receive from you no check to its 
advancement. 

Personal Experiences. — Time was, and with 
many it has not yet ceased, when open and avowed 
advocacy of Spiritualism cost something. That it 
would cost was early seen by this author. As far 
back as 1853 he prefaced an address which he then 
printed as follows : — 

The views here presented will be novel to very many 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 109 

readers, and will not harmonize with their long-cherished, 
fixed, and yet indefinite notions concerning the conditions, 
powers, and occupations of their departed kindred. 

Friends would restrain me, — for no one is so blind as not 
to see that avowal of belief in spirit agency will be followed 
by the charge of mental weakness, delusion, or folly. The 
charge will come not from the weak and wicked alone, but 
from the wise and devout. It will come from relatives and 
friends, kind and sincere. Such avowal therefore will not 
be made by the calm, considerate mind, excepting upon the 
evidence furnished through one's own senses, and that re- 
peated over and over again, and weighed well in the mental 
balances. Even after this process, and when conviction 
cannot be resisted, there are in most cases circumstances 
which are allowed to stifle confession. Whether they justify 
this stifling, each individual must judge in his own case. 

There appear to my mind results too high and noble in- 
volved in these ridiculed rappings and tippings to admit of 
my being deterred by the timid pleadings of worldly policy, 
or the sneers of those, however wise and kind, who have seen 
none of the wonders, from giving them the limited counte- 
nance and favor which my character for truth, sagacity, con- 
servatism, and benevolence may afford. What that charac- 
ter is others must tell ; but let me say that however it may 
be rated, and however valuable it may be to me, it cannot be 
worth more than I would gladly pay for the extension of 
such influences through the world as promise to flow from 
the lessons which man is be^innin^ to learn from his elder 
brothers who have escaped from bondage to the clay, and 
soared to regions of clearer vision and more accurate knowl- 
edge. 

The mind which composed the lecture here put in print, 
however feeble and deluded such production may cause it to 
be deemed, has enjoyed fair opportunities, has somewhat 



110 POST-MOKTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

studied the simpler principles at least of physical, intellect- 
ual, theological, and political science ; and whatever power 
and skill that mind possesses were most strenuously and per- 
severingly applied in the outset to reason around or away 
from the opinion that spirits can and do work the wonders 
that are now seen and heard. But the facts — yes, the facts 
— were too plain and stubborn to be either covered up or 
broken down. Once seen, they would, in spite of all old 
notions, keep before the mental vision ; there they would 
persistently stand, distinct and strong, and would teach over 
and over again that there was something speaking as never 
man spake ; that there was some hidden intelligence convey- 
ing its thoughts to me. 

What, then, must be my course ? It was neither manly, 
Christian, nor pious to deny a conviction which the facts 
that my own eyes and ears were witnessing forced upon the 
mind. Delay, until assurance should become doubly sure, 
might be admissible. And not until an entire year of the 
most faithful scrutiny, reflection, and re-reflection had passed 
did it seem best to avow belief. 

But at length, as a duty to God, to good angels, and to 
man, it was made, — made without reserve, without qualifi- 
cation. I believed at first, because I could not honestly — 
no, nor even dishonestly — help believing. The conviction 
came and stuck, and still sticks, and long may it continue to 
stick, for it is fraught with the richest, holiest, calmest 
thoughts and feelings which my mind has ever cherished, or 
in w 7 hich my soul has ever bathed. 

Reader, I ask not that you should believe because I do. 
But, whenever there shall be opportunity, let me trust you 
will calmly look at facts, and follow wherever these heaven- 
born guides shall lead. Should they bring you to faith in 
Spiritualism, in doing that they will, if such be your wish, 
let you see and feel that there are helping hands and heaven- 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 111 

ward attractions in those invisible witnesses around, who 
" Hold thee in full survey." 

Open advocacy of Spiritualism then did, and to 
some extent may even now, incur cost, but also it 
may bring equal and even overbalancing gain, not 
however in precisely the same coin. The loss mainly 
comes in changed conditions of the social and domes- 
tic relations, and in the public estimate of one's 
soundness of mind. The gain is in the growth, ex- 
pansion, and elevation of the mental and emotional 
faculties, outgrowths from consciousness of being 
true to, and faithful in, personal use and open com- 
mendation of truths taught by the Infinite Teacher 
through the .evolution of facts which reveal His pur- 
poses in manner not yet acceptable to the public 
mind. 

Here I am pleased to say, and say it truthfully, 
that through my long open advocacy of the cause, 
and conflicts with college professors, no person, in 
consequence of my spiritualistic faith and labors, has 
ever addressed me in an uncivil or irritating manner. 
The world is not all bad; not all harsh; far other- 
wise. Probably my course has drawn forth from 
society much more pity than reproof; and, if so, the 
course has not been void of benefit to those who 
were grieved by it, for exercise of pity is exercise of 
an ennobling emotion. 

Ere I had been a student of these then novel opera- 
tions fifteen months, I addressed a large, intelligent, 
and respectful assembly of my relatives, friends, and 
neighbors in Roxbury as follows: — 



112 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

Life's pathway has seemed to myself and many others to 
be illumined with a new light, either an ignis fatnus, a 
false light, luring to dismal swamps of error and disquietude, 
or it is a sun, conceived from creation's dawn, in nature's 
living laws, now but beginning to shine on man with a steady 
light, and promising to guide his steps to long-hidden fount- 
ains of truth and gladness. Is it a phantom or a sun ? Is 
it a creature of deluded human brains, or is it the handi- 
work of the eternal God? Having used my own senses, 
those, to me, best possible witnesses, and having used them 
in this work for more than a year, I am prepared to receive 
the light that is now struggling through the mists around 
us, as the dawn of a new day. 

And if it has been my lot, as we are performing our 
march over life's hill-tops, and down across its valleys, — if 
it has been my lot to stand on a spot where its earlier beams 
have met my eye, — why shall not I speak of the cheering 
event to those, whether before or behind me, who are now 
marching in the shaded valley ? 

Thus now my bread, or what seems such to my eyes and 
taste, is cast upon these waters. It will doubtless return to 
me,- — but whether of a finer wheat and sweeter taste, or 
coarse and unpalatable, — whether to make you, my friends, 
regard me as foolish or wise is known not to me, but yet is 
known to Him, — the maker of the wheat, — the Guardian 
of the waves, — the Great Requirer of truthfulness. 

Experiences by the writer have brought to him 
very considerable changes as to frequency and ex- 
tent of reciprocal visitings and intercommunings 
with kindred out of the family, and others in the 
grade of society in which he most extensively had 
moved. But the reasons for this have been as much, 
yes more, on his part than on the part of others ; and 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 113 

why? Because he eaily found that he could learn 
more facts and truths from supernal teachers, and 
have more ready and willing listeners to what he 
desired to teach when working among very many 
whose education and circumstances had failed to put 
them in the same social grade, or nearly the same, as 
the grade in which his education and circumstances 
had caused him to mingle freely. Probably many 
have viewed him as having been pressed down some- 
what on the social scale by the views others have taken 
of him because of his Spiritualism. It may be so ; but 
if it be thought from where respectability holds 
one back from free searchings for truth, and ties the 
tongue from its expression and advocacy, be down- 
ward from there to the level where freedom to learn 
truths of vast importance, and to inculcate them 
among fellow immortals w r ho lend to them willing 
ears, then he steps down with great cheerfulness. 
Yes, whatever changes have come as to his sphere of 
social circulation because of his Spiritualism, they 
have come more from his own choice than from pres- 
sure from any cuttings or turnings of cold shoulders 
to him by others. The world has treated him kindly 
and well. 

Changes of relations to kindred and to society at large 
are very frequent attendants upon espousal and open 
advocacy of faith that our departed ones can and do 
return and commune with their survivors. Where 
the change is strictly in the domestic or home rela- 
tions, it is often grievous and hard to be borne in 
patience ; but high as is the value of peace and har- 
mony at home, fealty to truth is not less valuable. 



114 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

He who was the revealer of supernal truth long ago 
essentially taught that one who loved father, mother, 
or any kindred more than the truths He was reveal- 
ing was not worthy of the truths He was dis- 
penser of. 

So far as relates to acquaintances, friends, and the 
social circles in which one moves, or to any not in 
the family, the case is less hard to meet and to bear 
by one who is a firmly true lover of truths which 
have swaying influences upon high spiritual inter- 
ests. 

One summer afternoon, in 1827, the author was 
walking back and forth alone in his natal chamber in 
serious consideration upon choice of profession, when 
a painful doubt as to the actual occurrence of the 
miracles came up with such force as to anguish his 
whole system, mind and body. Soon he said aloud, 
though then all alone: "O Infinite Father, that I 
might myself witness such works; could I do that, 
then would I believe, and would thenceforth labor 
faithfully to disseminate the truths they attest to." 

Relative calmness scon came, and then he began to 
accuse himself of near approach to, if not quite into, 
impiety, by asking for an impossibility. Impossible be- 
cause he had ever been taught, and then believed, that 
the days for miracles ceased forever when Jesus and 
his apostles and disciples had all passed out of their 
material forms. His vow then seemed an offspring 
of folly. Soon it was laid away in memory's darkest 
closet, where it had a quiet sleep through twenty- 
five years. 

On July 20, 1852, the brief and touching letter 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 115 

from Abby (see p. 78) awakened the vow from its 
long slumber. The prayer in 1827 then was partly 
answered, and soon after was met in full ; for, ere 
long, even water, under his own guardianship and 
personal keeping, was changed into wine, and many 
other marvels as great were seen. The obligations 
of his vow thenceforth were clearly upon him, and it 
has been his unwavering endeavor ever since to be 
as faithful in its performance as the duties and cares 
of his more external life would permit. Removal of 
friends, loss of health, abandonment of the ministry, 
loss of property, all have tended (whether so de- 
signed, and to that end imposed, is unknown), but 
they have tended to bring him into the connections 
and conditions which have made him the author of 
these pages. 

The number of my years says the time is near for 
my departure from this plane of existence. There- 
fore, something in the spirit and tone of parting 
words may not be untimely now. 

To the sisterhood and brotherhood of Spiritualists 
my earnest request is that "ye love one another"; 
also, that each of you shall steadily strive to com- 
mend your faith by letting it exercise over self, guid- 
ing and restraining, enlivening and cheering influ- 
ences in holding you steadily to practice of purity, 
truthfulness, honesty, temperance, kindness, unsel- 
fishness in both words and deeds. Live thus guided 
and aided, and then not other mortals alone, nor 
they and spirits alone, but yourself also, will be 
helped in movement onward towards angel-hood 
thereby. Dwell together in amity, envying no one, 



116 POST-MORTEM CONFESSIONS BY 

slandering no one, and then the world's redemption 
from errors, crimes, and sufferings thereby will be 
increased. 

Those who denounce Spiritualism, and would mal- 
treat Spiritualists, may and should infer a future 
need to suffer for it, by reflecting upon the Post- 
Mortem Confessions of those officers of Harvard Col- 
lege who gave it vigorous battle, and were baffled. 

Backed and fortified by v much experience since 
1853, I now close this book in language in which 1 
closed a lecture then, as follows : — 

I choose to state what is, namely, that the wide-spread 
half-faith in immortality which but just keeps half the mem- 
bers of the Christian community from denial, and goes no 
farther, is receiving new vitality and vigor, and growing up 
to the stature and power of undoubting trust Many think 
they are furnished with positive demonstration of that immor- 
tality which Christ only proclaimed. The thoughts and 
affections are lifted heavenward more than before. It must 
be so when one sees the long-absent travelers returning from 
beyond the hidden bourn, and finds them willing and eager 
to help us on and up to plains of higher knowledge, devo- 
tion, and joy. The skeptic — himself tells me so — the 
skeptic joins the trusting band; the believer — I know it, 
and others say it — the believer girds himself about with new 
faith. Will it not be so, if the loved and buried, no longer 
lost, but found, stretch down their helping hands, and speak 
their cheering words ? There is vast uplifting power in the 
belief that good kindred angels are present to guide our feet 
in the paths of truth and peace ; to breathe around and 
through us a purer charity, a brighter hope, a serener joy, 
than belong to our clay-bound souls. 



OFFICERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 117 

Recently, since men have begun to learn that the ascended 
parent, wife, husband, brother, sister, child, embryo infant, 
friend each pours down from above words of kind endear- 
ment, and beckons the doubting soul onward and upward, — 
since this knowledge has dawned upon us, some of the family 
below trust that they have begun to move onward and up- 
ward with firmer step, steadier progress, more confiding trust 
to join the family above, — 

' ' Where the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll, 
And the smile of the Lord is the life of the soul." 



APPENDIX. 



The following beautiful utterances by the spirit 
guides of Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond will adorn a 
page of this book, which otherwise would be blank : 

" Spiritualism wishes and aims only to elevate the individ- 
ual life, with which alone it deals. It is humanity that it 
has come to preserve, — not governments, legislatures, armies, 
creeds, or institutions. It works upon them most effectually 
as it works through humanity. Wherever a deed is done 
that serves mankind Spiritualism is there ; wherever man- 
kind are oppressed or down-trodden Spiritualism is there, up- 
lifting and strengthening. If spiritual healing could change 
its name sufficiently to be silenced as spiritual healing, and 



118 APPENDIX. 

be quietly classed as a new discovery by men of science, it 
would be appropriated instantly by those who are wedded to 
the orthodox creed of Materia Medica. If Spiritualism 
chose to be under the authority of dogma, creed, or formula, 
all mankind would worship the form, while the living spirit 
might have fled. 

"It comes not to do aught to those who deny it, but 
wherever the heart is sad and weary and worn, wherever 
dejected and scorned of men, wherever finding in no creed 
comfort, in no formula the lesson of immortal life, it declares 
the well-spring in the desert, the voice in the lonely place, 
and binds up the burdened spirit, and heals the broken 
heart. It says to all : ' Deny it if you will, but the rose will 
blossom on the fair rose-tree, the lilies of life will grow 
beside the flowing stream, the angels of God will speak with 
voices of comfort and rich melody to the hearts and lives of 
men, and before mankind is aware of it the ancient places of 
desolation and wrong will be overgrown by the blooming 
flowers of immortal life.' No place will it refuse to enter 
where a welcome awaits it, — whether hall, library, temple, 
place of worship, or human habitation, where there is a heart 
that requires its presence and that can perceive its voice. " 







INDEX. 










I 
Harvard Investigation 


»AG] 
3 


Agassiz 


, Professor 












, 15, 


43 


Bell, M 


D. 














. 29, 


53 


Eustis, 


Professor 














11, 


24 


Felton, 


Professor 














10, 


43 


Garclnei 


% Doctor 














31, 


54 


Lunt, Editor 














23, 


49 


Peirce, 


Professor 














27, 


52 


Putnam 


, D. D. . 














26, 


50 


Walker 


President 












18, 45, 


48 


Willis, Doctor . 














3, 


46 



SUPPLEMENT. 

Page 

Introduction 59 

Planetary Influences 62 

Openers of the Gates 68 

God 73 

Managers of Spiritualism 76 

Methods, Motives, and Aims .... 80 

For Whose Good? 83 

First Needs 89 

Sad Conditions 91 

Various Locations 93 

Mediumship 94 

How Commune ....... 96 

Business 98 

Healing 99 

Consolation . . . " . . . . 101 

Religious Aspects 103 

Personal Experiences 108 

Appendix, 117 



